A car plowed into a group of pedestrians and injured at least eight people on the main shopping street of a northern Italian city on Saturday afternoon, the mayor said.
Four of the injured were in serious condition, said the mayor, Massimo Mezzetti, in a Facebook video, calling the crash in his city, Modena, a “crazy act.” He later said a woman’s legs had been crushed. Two people were taken by helicopter to a hospital in Bologna, the regional capital, about 30 miles away.
The car, which had been traveling at high speed, eventually rammed into a storefront, and the driver tried to escape on foot, the authorities said.
Several people blocked the driver as he tried to flee. Italian news media showed footage of a man with blood dripping down his face, who said the driver had grazed his head with a knife as he was trying to wriggle out of his grip. The mayor praised the residents who acted to stop him, saying that they had shown “great courage and great civic sense.”
Mr. Mezzetti said that the driver had been taken to police headquarters, where he was being interrogated.
“This is a dramatic moment, and it is too early to speculate on what has happened,” the mayor said.
The authorities later said the driver was a 31-year-old Italian man who resided in the area. On X, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant League party, highlighted the driver’s background as a “second-generation” Italian, identifying him as Salim El Koudri. “Madness,” he said. “There can be no justification for such an infamous act.”
Roberto Solomita, the mayor’s chief of staff, said this was the first incident of its kind in Modena. In general, immigrants and their families had integrated well in Modena, he said.
“It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and downtown was full of people,” said Simona Sighinolfi, who works for a local business owners association, and who was walking near to where the accident took place. “I am still shaking, I can still hear the screams and the noise,” she said in a telephone interview.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the incident had been “extremely serious” and expressed her closeness to the victims and their families. “I trust that the perpetrator will be held fully accountable for his actions,” she said on X.
Elisabetta Povoledo is a Times reporter based in Rome, covering Italy, the Vatican and the culture of the region. She has been a journalist for 35 years.
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