Munich police are investigating a "suspected attack" in which a man drove a Mini Cooper into a crowd of people, injuring at least 28.
The man, whose identity has not been released, has an "extremist background," according to police, NBC News reported. The incident comes just a day before a security conference in Munich that is to be attended by U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
"There was no protective impact to the VP, but we are monitoring that incident closely, and German authorities are still investigating a potential motive," the network quoted a statement from the Secret Service.
The incident occurred in Munich at 10:30 a.m. local time. The 24-year-old man drove his vehicle into numerous pedestrians. Police fired a shot at the car during the arrest. German authorities posted on social media that the man was caught at the site of the incident.
The man was an Afghan asylum seeker and known to authorities as he previously had arrests related to drug and theft offenses, NBC News reported.
A fire service spokesman told AFP that some of those hit by the vehicle were "seriously injured, some of them in a life-threatening condition". Markus Soeder, the state premier of Bavaria, called the incident "just terrible" and that "it looks like this was an attack".
The incident comes amidst calls by Soeder's Bavarian CSU party and its national sister party the CDU to curb migration to Germany.
"This is not the first incident... we must show determination that something will change in Germany," Soeder said, according to AFP. "This is further proof that we can't keep going from attack to attack."
Eyewitness Alexa Graef told AFP that she was "shocked" and that it "looked deliberate".
The vehicle plowed into a crowd of striking workers.
The president of the Verdi union Frank Werneke said in a statement: "We are deeply upset and shocked at the awful incident during a peaceful demonstration by our Verdi colleagues."
