The “shocked” sister of a man who ploughed his car into a group of schoolchildren, killing their teacher and wounding 13 students, has said her brother “has serious problems”.
Gor H, a 29-year-old German-Armenian living in Berlin, deliberately rammed his sister’s Renault vehicle into a crowd in a popular shopping area in the Charlottenburg neighbourhood on Wednesday around 10.30am.
The rampage killed the 51-year-old female teacher of a 10th-grade school class who were standing in front of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and left a second seriously hurt, as well as wounding 13 students aged between 16 and 17.
Six students were left with critical injuries while two other people unrelated to the school class were in hospital being treated for serious wounds.
Dozens of other people received minor injuries.
Gor was being quizzed by police today, with officers reportedly still working to ascertain a motive.
German media reported that while he was speaking to officers, he had made “confused statements” that they were trying to decipher.
Berlin’s mayor, Franziska Giffey, said a picture was emerging of a “rampage” carried out by a “severely mentally impaired person.
Gor’s sister was interviewed by German newspaper Bild outside the apartment the pair shared with their mental-health nurse mother, commenting only that her brother has “serious problems”.
And neighbours, who affectionately referred to Gor as “little round man” due to his weight said he had always greeted them warmly.
They went on to describe him as a “loving and nice person”.
Footage from the incident shows the suspect being led away to a police car, while his silver Renault sits smashed through the front window of a perfume shop.
Gor was first detained by bystanders before he was arrested by authorities while shouting “please help” at passers-by, after his car veered off the road and collided with multiple people.
Video of the aftermath shows badly wounded shoppers laying across the pavement. In other footage from the scene, screams of witnesses can be heard.
Gor’s apartment, which was located less than a mile from the crime scene, was raided by armed police on Wednesday afternoon with officers stating they had found no explosives or extremist material.
While a “confession note” reportedly found in the vehicle turned out not to exist, officers did find literature “expressing views on Turkey” - which was now being probed.
Almost all of those injured in the incident came from a single school in the small town of Bad Arolsen, around 200 miles to the west of Berlin in northern Hesse State.
The class of 24 students was on a trip to the city that had been organised for the 10th grade pupils to celebrate the end of term and the end of their exams.
The school was described as a “big school in a small town” by Jürgen van der Horst, local administrator for the Waldeck-Frankenberg district where the college is located, who said almost all of the 16,000 residents knew someone affected.
Speaking to Bild late on Wednesday, he said there was “great dismay” in the town.
Berlin's largest newspaper Tagesspiegel said investigations into the attack were being carried out by homicide detectives. State security forces would be called in to lead the case if terrorism was suspected as a motive.
On Wednesday it was revealed that Gor had no record with state security forces, although he did have a record with local Berlin police for thefts. Cops said these incidents were “unrelated to extremism”.
American-British actor John Barrowman, who was in a nearby store at the time of the crash, said the scene was “carnage”.
Berlin's top security official, Iris Spranger, said the driver was in a hospital, where it would be determined whether he was ill, had taken drugs, “and so on”.
'We can't rule anything out at the moment ... but there is no claim of responsibility,' Spranger said.
Mayor Giffey, who said she was “deeply shocked” by the incident, cautioned against drawing premature conclusions.
He said: "Before speculating, I think it's important at this stage to really let the police and fire service conduct their investigation,' she said. 'We want the greatest possible transparency, but we also want reliable information."
The Mayor said the crash had brought back “terrible memories” of a truck attack more than five years ago, at the nearby Breitscheidplatz square.
Thirteen people had died when an Islamic extremist drove into a Christmas market in 2016.
And in 2019, four people died when an SUV suffered an epileptic seizure and veered onto the sidewalk, ploughing into a group of pedestrians in central Berlin.
A memorial service for the woman who had died and the 14 others hurt in the crash was held in the evening at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on the Breitscheidplatz, next to the scene of the crash.
