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A car drove into a crowd in Berlin, killing 1 person, police say

Police block the site where a car crashed into a crowd and then a shop. At least one person was reportedly killed, with others injured when a car drove into a group of people at the busy shopping district in Berlin on Wednesday, police said.
Adam Berry
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AFP via Getty Images
Police block the site where a car crashed into a crowd and then a shop. At least one person was reportedly killed, with others injured when a car drove into a group of people at the busy shopping district in Berlin on Wednesday, police said.

A car plowed through crowd of people in a busy shopping area in Berlin on Wednesday, and police are trying to determine whether it was a terrorist attack. At least one person died and several others were seriously hurt, according to police in Berlin.

Five people suffered life-threatening injuries, according to Deutsche Welle.

Emergency responders have kept the man who was driving the car at the scene, according to the Berlin police department.

The car's driver is a German man of Armenian descent who is 29, police said, adding that he was initially detained by witnesses before being handed over to emergency personnel.

The incident took place on Tauenzienstrasse, a street well-known for shopping in western Berlin's Charlottenburg district. Around 60 emergency personnel rushed to the site after the crash, Berlin's fire department said.

In Germany, the incident quickly stirred public speculation over a possible motive, with many people noting that it took place near Breitscheidplatz — where a man drove a hijacked truck through a Christmas market in 2016, killing a dozen people in what was deemed a terrorist attack.

But police and other authorities are warning against leaping to any conclusions about Wednesday's tragic event, noting that the investigation has just begun.

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Bill Chappell is a writer and editor on the News Desk in the heart of NPR's newsroom in Washington, D.C.