Berlin police identify suspect in Pride event car attack, search continues

Berlin police said they had identified a suspect in the car attack at the city’s Pride celebrations and were pressing a search for him after the suspect fled. Police spokesman Florian Nath said the man was already known to police, was from Berlin, and had ties to Islamic “circles” in the German capital. “Our search for this person is proceeding at full speed,” Nath said.

Investigators believed the incident was intentional, based on their initial findings. The attack unfolded near Berlin’s Pride celebrations in Tiergarten park, close to the Brandenburg Gate, where a vehicle drove into a crowd during the annual Christopher Street Day event. Police called off the parade after the crash.

The toll remained contested across early reports. One account put the number at one person killed and 15 injured, including some in life-threatening condition. Other reports said at least 16 people were injured. Berlin police did not name the suspect, and he remained at large.

The episode landed during one of Berlin’s largest annual public events. Christopher Street Day has been celebrated in Germany since 1979, and Berlin police estimated around 150,000 people marched in the city’s 2022 celebration. The scale of that turnout underscored the security stakes around a parade that draws crowds through central Berlin, including areas near the Brandenburg Gate and Berlin’s Mitte neighborhood.

The attack also fit a broader pattern of pressure on Pride events in Germany. In 2025, Reuters and The Guardian reported that Pride parades across the country were facing a rise in attacks, while an Associated Press report from July 2022 described two apparent homophobic attacks after Berlin Pride. Those episodes, together with the latest strike in Tiergarten, have sharpened questions about warning signs, police monitoring, and whether authorities can stop politically or ideologically motivated violence before it reaches a crowd.