A 21-year-old man drove a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations in the Tiergarten area late Saturday, killing one woman and injuring dozens, before he was tracked down and shot dead by police in the Spandau district on Sunday, authorities and multiple news outlets reported.
Berlin police and German officials say the attack unfolded late Saturday night near the city’s main Pride events around the Tiergarten, close to the Brandenburg Gate, when a van drove into pedestrians and struck multiple people before crashing into a tree.
Authorities and several media outlets reported that the suspect then attacked people on foot with a bladed weapon described by witnesses and officials as a machete or machete-like object.
The victim who died was a woman. Injury figures reported by major outlets varied in the hours after the attack as emergency services assessed victims; by Sunday and Monday, several outlets and officials were reporting 29 injured.
German authorities have described the incident as an extremist terror attack. The suspect was identified by officials and widely reported in the media as Abdul Ballout, 21, a German citizen with Lebanese roots.
After a citywide manhunt, police located the suspect on Sunday at a garden allotment area in Berlin’s western borough of Spandau. Authorities said officers opened fire when the suspect confronted them with a sharp instrument, and he later died of his injuries.
Social media reaction also focused on early wording used by some outlets to describe the incident. A post by The New York Times on X describing a vehicle that “plowed” into the crowd drew criticism from conservative commentators, including Ben Shapiro, who argued the phrasing did not immediately identify the suspect or a possible motive.
Officials urged witnesses to share any videos or photographs from the scene as investigators continued to examine the suspect’s background and potential extremist links.
