Driver plows car into pedestrians at German bus stop

On Thursday afternoon a 32-year-old man drove his car into a group of pedestrians waiting at a bus stop in the German city of Recklinghausen, near Dortmund. The crash injured seven people, including the driver, and killed an 88-year-old woman.

The cause of the accident, which took place shortly before 3 p.m. local time (1400 GMT/UTC), is not yet known. 

The driver reportedly swerved out of his lane, crossing onto the wrong side of the street before plowing into the crowded bus stop.

"Police experts are working intensively on determining the cause. The area around the accident has been closed off," local police said on Twitter.

Recklinghausen police repeatedly urged citizens responding to their original tweet not to jump to conclusions, but rather to wait until police have conducted a thorough investigation of the incident.

A press release issued Thursday evening by the Bochum State Prosecutor's Office and Recklinghausen police stated that the driver, a resident of the city of Herten, was currently hospitalized with serious injuries, and that authorities were not ruling out the possibility that he intended to commit suicide.

Germany, like many countries, is well aware of the possibility that the accident could have been intentional. Two years ago, Anis Amri, a Tunisian-born criminal and radicalized Islamic terrorist, drove a semi-trailer truck into a crowd of people at a Berlin Christmas market, killing three people and injuring 55 more.

Read more:  Münster attacker had 'suicidal thoughts'  

js/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)