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Police stand outside the building where the driver reportedly lived
The man suspected of carrying out a van attack in Muenster was a lone German who suffered mental health problems, the state interior minister has said.
Authorities have searched four homes associated with the suspect, and said they have found “no clues” pointing to an extremist or political motive.
Two people were killed when a van was driven into a restaurant terrace area of the west German city on Saturday.
The 48-year-old driver shot and killed himself after hitting diners.
He has been identified in German media as Jens R – prosecutors say he was known to police.
In 2015 and 2016, he had faced allegations of making threats, damaging property, a hit-and-run traffic accident and fraud, all of which were dropped.
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Well wishers have placed flowers, candles and a sign asking ‘why?’ next to the scene of the attack
“The person in focus had [psychological] abnormalities” that needed careful investigation, regional interior minister Herbert Reul said after placing flowers at the scene of the attack.
He said there was no evidence linking the suspect to Islamist militancy, and that he was not a refugee.
How Germany van incident unfolded online
“We are assuming the motives and origins [of the crime] lie within the perpetrator himself,” Hajo Kuhlisch, chief of local police told reporters.
The victims were a 51-year-old woman from near Lueneburg, in the north of the country, and a 65-year-old man from Borken, near Muenster. Some 20 others were injured.
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Muenster’s mayor Markus Lewe (l), and federal interior minister Horst Seehofer (2nd r) paid tribute at the scene of the crime
What else do we know about the perpetrator?
“We now know it was in all likelihood a lone perpetrator, a German,” Mr Reul said.
Prosecutors said there had been three criminal proceedings against him in Muenster, and one in the city of Ansbach dating back to 2015 and 2016.
“We have no indications of a politically motivated background [for the crime]“, senior prosecutor Elke Adomeit said.
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The van used in the attack on Saturday was removed in the night
Although officials have provided few details, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the man lived just 2km (1.2 miles) from the restaurant.
How did the incident unfold?
A vehicle, reportedly a grey VW van, was driven into a tourist square in the 300,000-population city at 15:27 local time (13:27 GMT) on Saturday.
Eyewitnesses said it was driven at speed and photographs of the aftermath showed tables and chairs strewn across a restaurant terrace area.
A bang was heard and people screamed, one cafe employee told local media.
Daniel Kollenberg, who witnessed the aftermath, told the BBC: “I think it is a deliberate attack because it’s not allowed for cars to go in this area.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement that she was “deeply shaken” by the incident.
“Everything possible is now being done to clarify the facts and to support the victims and their relatives,” she said.
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted in French and German, saying his country was suffering with Germany.
NEW YORK — A raging fire that tore through a 50th-floor apartment at Trump Tower killed a man inside and sent flames and thick, black smoke pouring from windows of the president’s namesake skyscraper.
New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the cause of Saturday’s blaze is not yet known but the apartment was “virtually entirely on fire” when firefighters arrived after 5:30 p.m.
“It was a very difficult fire, as you can imagine,” Nigro told reporters outside the building in midtown Manhattan. “The apartment is quite large.”
Todd Brassner, 67, who was in the apartment, was taken to a hospital and died a short time later, the New York Police Department said. Property records obtained by The Associated Press indicate Brassner was an art dealer who had purchased his unit in 1996.
Officials said four firefighters also suffered minor injuries. An investigation is ongoing.
Shortly after news of the fire broke, President Donald Trump, who was in Washington, tweeted: “Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!”
Asked if that assessment was accurate, Nigro said, “It’s a well-built building. The upper floors, the residence floors, are not sprinklered.”
Fire sprinklers were not required in New York City high-rises when Trump Tower was completed in 1983. Subsequent updates to the building code required commercial skyscrapers to install the sprinklers retroactively, but owners of older residential high-rises are not required to install sprinklers unless the building undergoes major renovations.
Some fire-safety advocates pushed for a requirement that older apartment buildings be retrofitted with sprinklers when New York City passed a law requiring them in new residential highrises in 1999, but officials in the administration of then-mayor Rudy Giuliani said that would be too expensive.
Nigro noted that no member of the Trump family was in the 664-foot tower Saturday.
Trump’s family has an apartment on the top floors of the 58-story building, but he has spent little time in New York since taking office. The headquarters of the Trump Organization is on the 26th floor.
Nigro said firefighters and Secret Service members checked on the condition of Trump’s apartment. About 200 firefighters and emergency medical service workers responded to the fire, he said.
Some residents said they didn’t get any notification from building management to evacuate.
Lalitha Masson, a 76-year-old resident, called it “a very, very terrifying experience.”
Masson told The New York Times that she did not receive any announcement about leaving, and that when she called the front desk no one answered.
“When I saw the television, I thought we were finished,” said Masson, who lives on the 36th floor with her husband, Narinder, who is 79 and has Parkinson’s disease.
She said she started praying because she felt it was the end.
“I called my oldest son and said goodbye to him because the way it looked everything was falling out of the window, and it reminded me of 9/11,” Masson said.
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