Fox News: Car Plows Through Crowd at Christmas Market in Germany

BREAM: “Breaking moments ago, we brought you this news, reports are coming in of a car crashing into a group of people gathered at a Christian — Christmas market in eastern Germany. Local media say it appears to be deliberate. We’ve got some photos here, John, as we are gathering more information. I was just in Europe last week. These are very popular. People love to get out there. There are very few in many of these towns and cities, real barricades to these areas. You’re walking among little shops and tents and huts and it’s very festive. But we don’t know what happened here, who this was, whether it was intentional or not, but it would certainly be a potential target for somebody if they intended to do harm.”

ROBERTS: “There’s no question about that. And as you said, because there are no barricades between the street and the market itself, if someone had ill intent, it would be quite easy to get in there and do an awful lot of damage. This follows, again, a massive attack, deliberate running down of people in 2016 at a Christmas market in central Berlin. It was packed with people. 50 people were injured, 12 of them were killed. Our Alex Hogan is in London and she’s looking into all of this and she joins us now. Alex, do we know if this indeed was a deliberate attack?”

HOGAN: “Hi, John. So we do not have that confirmation right now. The big question, of course, also is what is going to be the extent of the damage in terms of casualties, people injured. It’s important to think also about the context of what this was. These Christmas markets are really a pillar in a lot of these German towns there, where people go to spend their evenings. It’s the week before Christmas, so people would be there in large numbers, not only buy gifts but to have food, to walk around. We do have footage coming in now that shows just the widespread extent of the ambulances that have showed up, the police on scene. We are able to see the latest report from police saying that this is an ongoing investigation. It’s very active. They have shut down this market, which is in the center of the town. We know from local reports that this driver allegedly drove into the crowd, plowing through people on his way or her way to the city center. So, again, a lot of questions as to what exactly that would mean. But as you mentioned, this triggers a lot of painful memories of the attack that happened in Berlin. Two year — or two days ago, that was the anniversary, as you mentioned, 12 people died. Another person, a 13th, died about five years after that because of these longstanding injuries that they had suffered. So even though 13 people died in that attack, more than 50 people had been wounded. You can imagine in a crowd of people, having a car plow through that, whether this was potentially an accident, or the driver lost control of the vehicle, if this was indeed an act of terror, which police are continuing to investigate. A lot of questions tonight, but of course, an alarming and really tragic situation.”

ROBERTS: “Do we know anything about the vehicle and kind of what rate of speed that it was traveling at when it ran into the market? There is some video that’s circulating online, unverified at this point, but there does appear to be a vehicle traveling at a very high rate of speed.”

HOGAN: “Yes. So we have heard from local reports that this vehicle was traveling at a very high-speed, again, going toward the center of the city where this Christmas market was. That video that we’re still trying to verify, if that is indeed real, it does appear that it was sped up, but even without that, this would be an alarming speed to be driving any time that you have pedestrians anywhere near a vehicle, let alone driving straight into a crowd. And, again, so there’s going to be a lot of questions trying to identify what they know about the intentions of this driver. Local reports suggest that that person is in custody and we have heard from the local police on the ground that they released a report. They’re going to continue to release more information. This is, again, about two hours outside of Berlin, so there’s likely going to be an enormous amount of presence in terms of journalists, more police likely trying to descend on the region as we speak.”

BREAM: “Yeah, Alex, Shannon is here, and I was going to ask you that question about whether they had somebody in custody or not because the AP is reporting that a German news agency says they did arrest the driver of the car, which would seem to eventually be giving us answers. I mean, with that person surviving, whatever happened there, was it a health issue? Was this deliberate? It seems that that is a a good thing at least that they will be able to talk to the suspect and determine what the — what the motive was, if there was one. We’re seeing a lot of ambulances, which you would expect to, you know, turn to a scene like this with so many people on site. Any word at all about casualties?”

HOGAN: “Well, we’ve heard some initial reports, nothing confirmed at this point and we want to make sure that of course we’re only reporting the numbers that we can verify. But given the footage, again, that we are seeing that potentially, you know, we don’t have that fully verified just yet, but having a car driving at this speed into a crowd, it would be surprising if we’re not going to hear a growing number of people who have been wounded, if not worse. And as you mentioned, it is a good thing that this person is in custody, according to local reports, they will be able to have those conversations. And it is different from the case that you were talking about earlier in 2016 when that driver, a Tunisian man, fled the scene. He was later killed by Italian police after the manhunt. This search for this driver really spread across countries, really across Europe. So having this person potentially in custody will hopefully give some answers in the short-term.”

ROBERTS: “Is there any indication — I know that this is just the early moments after this happened, that if this was a deliberate act, was it potentially tied to terror? Was it just an isolated incident? Could it have been some sort of individual grievance? Is there anything on that front at this point?”

HOGAN: “The police have not given any comments about that specifically, but that, as you mentioned, is immediately where people’s minds are going, given that we have seen not only rammings at Christmas markets, but just in general in Germany. Unfortunately, this is something that does happen and we heard from local officials in the last month saying that there were no specific threats specifically to Christmas markets. And I bring that up again just to show you how much of a part of the community these markets are. They’re not just a fun event for people to go to every once in a while. They’re typically in the middle of the city center. They can take up streets or whole corners of the city, something that children, teenagers, adults all do frequent and in large numbers, especially a week before the Christmas holidays, given that this, again, is a Christian holiday, a Christian festive market that is open to anyone. But it does raise those concerns that this could be religiously motivated.”