BERLIN — A van drove into a crowd during Berlin’s famed LGBTQ+ event Saturday, killing one person and injuring at least 15, and prompting police to call off the celebrations and a concert in the German capital hours after they had begun.
Police said some of the survivors had life-threatening injuries. Firefighters and ambulances were out with many emergency staffers at the scene to attend to the victims.
In a post on X, police called on everyone to leave the site of the event immediately.
According to police, a white van had driven into the Tiergarten park, which is just off the route where the Pride march had passed along earlier, and hit several people before colliding with a tree. Police could not say how many officers had been deployed to the scene. It was “definitely a lot of police,” one officer said. They said they were searching for suspects.
“We are conducting an intensive search for possible suspects,” a police officer said on a short video released on the Berlin police account on X.
Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Berlin on Saturday to celebrate at Berlin’s Pride parade, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day. It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.
The Pride event in front of the city’s iconic Brandenburg Gate downtown was called off around 10:15 p.m. and a band’s performance on stage was interrupted. People were urged to go home and to avoid taking the route through Tiergarten.
Before the incident, people had celebrated peacefully, marching through the city for hours, dancing to loud music and cheering some 80 floats that participated in the parade.
Kirsten Grieshaber and Fanny Brodersen write for the Associated Press.
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