Active Shooter In Olympia Mall In Munich

[sunday]

Good to know you are well.

[Murph]

Oh Geez, I am sorry for the German people. Can all of our German members check in please. Religion of Peace doncha know.....

In more other news: a truck ran into a christmas market in Berlin. Nine dead, 50 or so injured. State owned Berlin TV station rbb says police suspects terrorism.

[Markus Becker]

Update:

 

The dead perp is most likely another victim. The truck driver had been missing since 16:00 hours. He was on the way back from Italy. Cops think the perp killed him when he hijacked the truck. The perp did try to run but was arrested a few hundred meters away.

[Adam_S]

Apparently the perp was an asylum seeker of Pakistani or Afghan descent. That should be a big help for Merkel in the next election.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-20/truck-ploughs-into-crowded-christmas-market-in-berlin/8133952

[Marek Tucan]

Update:

 

The dead perp is most likely another victim. The truck driver had been missing since 16:00 hours. He was on the way back from Italy. Cops think the perp killed him when he hijacked the truck. The perp did try to run but was arrested a few hundred meters away.

TBH the "dead perp in truck" thing confused me from the beginning: Why would you need two people? And the truck did not look damaged enough to cause death inside. Makes sense if the body is the unfortunate original driver.

 

EDIT: Reported death toll now is 12. Let's hope no arsehole tries to beat that score now. Good thing I already been to the Christmas markets here.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Marek Tucan

[BansheeOne]

Apparently the perp was an asylum seeker of Pakistani or Afghan descent. That should be a big help for Merkel in the next election.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-20/truck-ploughs-into-crowded-christmas-market-in-berlin/8133952

 

As I've noted before, attacks with the aim to influence next year's elections can be expected in the runup.

 

Information is still somewhat vague and contradictory at this point:

 

- Police are working on the assumption of a deliberate attack. It has not been officially confirmed that the arrested suspect was the driver, but media are reporting he was followed from the scene by a witness who stayed in touch with police until he got detained by a patrol after two kilometers. They are also quoting "security circles" that he is a Pakistani (or Afghan) named Navid/Naved B. who entered Germany via Passau variously on 31 December last or 1 February this year and has a petty criminal record, which would of course be pretty typical for such types; he is also suggested to have used various aliases and forged IDs, a sign of the professional asylum seeker drifting around Germany/Europe to get support from multiple local authorities (reference the guy who was killed charging a French police station with an axe). There was an SEK raid at the old Tempelhof Airport hangars still used as a refugee shelter in the early morning, but again a connection has not been confirmed.

 

- A second person in the cab was reported to have "died on the scene", which leaves open the possibility that he was deliberately killed by the first, or died in the crash; the windscreen looks of course thoroughly smashed in pictures. The theory of a runaway truck after the driver died at the wheel is currently not getting any play, though it hasn't been officially ruled out yet either.

 

- The Polish owner of the truck has stated that the vehicle was transporting steel beams from Italy to Berlin, arrived yesterday but was to be unloaded only today and thus to stay overnight. He further said he had last phoned the driver, his cousin, at 1600 but couldn't reach him afterwards; obviously he thinks the latter is not at fault but had something done to him. The company also said the vehicle's GPS shows it was started up at 1544, 1652 and 1737, started moving again at 1934 and left its position at 1945, arriving at the crash scene around 2000. However, German police have also stated they were checking the possibility it was stolen from a Polish construction site, which might be a contradiction or just poor phrasing somewhere in the chain.

 

I would expect a refugee to be used in such an attack to maximize political impact (see above) and wouldn't be surprised if this was another case of "IS remote control" like the two cases in summer and the Ludwigshafen boy I mentioned last week. The Würzburg train axeman was also reported to have been suggested to drive a vehicle into a crowd by his handlers initially, but couldn't drive.

[BansheeOne]

- A second person in the cab was reported to have "died on the scene", which leaves open the possibility that he was deliberately killed by the first, or died in the crash; the windscreen looks of course thoroughly smashed in pictures. The theory of a runaway truck after the driver died at the wheel is currently not getting any play, though it hasn't been officially ruled out yet either.

 

- The Polish owner of the truck has stated that the vehicle was transporting steel beams from Italy to Berlin, arrived yesterday but was to be unloaded only today and thus to stay overnight. He further said he had last phoned the driver, his cousin, at 1600 but couldn't reach him afterwards; obviously he thinks the latter is not at fault but had something done to him.

 

It is now being reported that the Polish driver was indeed the dead person in the passenger seat, supposedly shot, which would indicate a higher level of preparation.

[Markus Becker]

 

EDIT: Reported death toll now is 12. Let's hope no arsehole tries to beat that score now. Good thing I already been to the Christmas markets here.

We were lucky the perp did not take a page out of the Palestinian playbook for vehicular attacks. Frist ram, then stab and slash.

 

edit: Xmas market in Paris? I guess the are ram proof.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Markus Becker

[Markus Becker]

"As I've noted before, attacks with the aim to influence next year's elections can be expected in the runup."

 

Don't read too much into it. Muslim terrorists kill infidels all the time and all over the world. Sooner or later a big one had to hit us.

[BansheeOne]

New development: The "Welt" cites "ranking security circles" that they got the wrong man, and the actual perpetrator is thus still at large and armed (the Polish driver is reported to have been shot with a small-bore gun). The previous suspect had already protested his innocence; his story seems to have checked out.

 

Casualties remain at 12 killed (including the driver) and 48 injured, of which 18 seriously.

Edited December 20, 2016 by BansheeOne

[Markus Becker]

They what? You got to be ...

 

http://www.pyongyangtrafficgirls.com/

 

Because real life is stranger than fiction.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Markus Becker

[BansheeOne]

I think that was to go on some other thread ...

 

Casualties remain at 12 killed (including the driver) and 48 injured, of which 18 seriously.

 

Correction: the 18 seriously injured included four who later died, so new numbers are 12 killed, 14 severely and 35 lightly injured. Compared to the triple-digit fatalities in some of the recent attacks in France that's rather light; the truck followed the lane on the market for only about 60-80 meters before it crashed through a booth and ended up back on the road.

 

 

 

No news on the perpetrator front. Nobody has stated outright before a microphone that the detained suspect is the wrong guy, only that police is working to harden the case, and that a suspect might still be at large; apparently no gunpowder residue or blood was found on the guy they have. Of course it's possible that more than one perpetrator was involved. Police also said they seized a cellphone in the Tempelhof Airport shelter raid mentioned earlier, but not if or how it might be connected to events.

 

The rumor and panic side was much more contained than in the Munich shooting spree BTW; police asked not to spread any unsubstantiated information or images from the scene and rather direct the latter to them, and people including media seem to have largely stuck to it. Of course it probably helped that this was a vehicle attack with the vehicle demonstrably remaining on the scene, so no rumors of armed terrorists everywhere.

Edited December 20, 2016 by BansheeOne

[Markus Becker]

On the radio the district attorney said the suspect might not be perp.

 

PS: The perp had a gun and didn't shoot anybody else on the market or use it for suicide by cop. We are likely to hear from that one again! Tomorrow's brief stay in Berlin has the potential to become interesting for all the wrong reasons. Expect "ownerless luggage" to be reported.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Markus Becker

[BansheeOne]

I haven't noticed any particular jitters today. People are talking of events of course, and Christmas markets are closed, out of respect as much as for security reasons, but I didn't really see more police in the government quarter or hear of any false alarms.

 

The previous suspect has been released for the abovementioned lack of traces on him and his whereabouts during the attack apparently confirmed. It seems the guy(s) who followed the man they thought was the driver didn't keep an eye on him the whole time they ran through Tiergarten in the dark, so they may have led police to the wrong person. The only description of the driver right now is that he was wearing white sneakers, which isn't terribly helpful.

 

Something has been rubbing me the wrong way about this, and only now I realized nobody has claimed the attack after 24 hours, though there was reference to some "indirect" claims; this probably means people claiming they found "encrypted accounts" of various groups claiming the attack. A German-speaking IS propagandist also called for more such attacks soon after it happened, but did not attribute it to one of their "soldiers". Given that the IS has taken ownership of everything from the Munich shooter to that unexplained Hamburg stabbing to some drug pusher shooting it out with Kopenhagen police via their extensive PR machine, usually very quickly, I find this weird. I have a nagging feeling we're missing something (other than the perpetrator, natch).

[Marek Tucan]

Also according to the news it weemed that the perp tried to start car twice during the day, but did not drive anywhere. And it seems he had a plan - looks like he went for this market because of the closeness to Tiergarten. Overall it seems like potentially more dangerous thing than your usual "going out in blaze of glory" case.

[Markus Becker]

False alerts are already happening. Noticed one this evening. And a trio of cops in Mannheim, one with an MP-5. That's a sight you rarely see. I just hope they use hollow points these days.

 

The a-holes are busy too. Cologne Central had been closed at 18:00 after a bomb threat over the phone. Fake one, station is open since 19:00 but the chaos is just dying down.

 

Why didn't we hear from the IS? Maybe the perp has realized why so many others have been arrested at the last second. Because they got in touch with the IS over the internet and got caught by the NSA.

 

Still, it's strange he ran instead of staying and maximizing casualties.

[BansheeOne]

Well, the IS claimed it barely half an hour after I posted. I'm relieved.

[sunday]

There was a Spanish national injured in the attack, several leg bones broken. According to his social network history he is a sympathizer of ETA, that Basque terrorist group.

 

Could not have happened to a nicer guy.

[Cinaruco]

There was a Spanish national injured in the attack, several leg bones broken. According to his social network history he is a sympathizer of ETA, that Basque terrorist group.

 

Could not have happened to a nicer guy.

You can be savage sometimes :D

[sunday]

No, only recognizing serendipity. Probably that special snowflake would think a bit about what it is to be a victim of terrorism. And he was also denouncing the "repressive" German policies with respect to immigrants, as later as December, 15th.

 

http://www.libertaddigital.com/espana/2016-12-20/el-espanol-herido-en-berlin-critico-las-detenciones-en-alsasua-y-seguidor-de-otegi-1276589137/

[Markus Becker]

Poetic injustice is a bitch!

[BansheeOne]

IDing the victims seems to be difficult. Yesterday there were reports of six German citizens, and that number hasn't changed since (though I guess the Polish driver is extra). An Italian and an Israeli woman are missing and might be among the dead. The number of fatalities may still rise since some of the injured are stated to be critical.

 

Still no news on the actual attacker, though police sound confident, working on several hundred pointers as well as GPS and cellphone data.

[BansheeOne]

In the latest development, it might have been the damn Javas. New suspect is a 24-year-old Tunisian from Tataouine, name given as variously Anis or Ahmed A.; again, he might have used different identities in the typical way of professional asylum seekers. A personal document, possibly his residence permit, was reportedly found unter the truck's driver seat, which was very considerate of the perpetrator.

[Markus Becker]

Stupid thing to do or a red herring. By planting papers of someone else. The latter wouldn't surprise me.

[JasonJ]

If the ID under the seat matches the perpetrator, then a stupid thing. But people do stupid things when in high adrenaline situations unless careful planning is done or has experience in similar situations thus reducing the adrenaline effect.

Edited December 21, 2016 by JasonJ