The latest vehicle-ramming case in Leipzig underscores how attackers have repeatedly used cars to strike pedestrians in crowded places, turning everyday public areas into sites of sudden violence. The Associated Press reported that two people died and three were seriously injured when a driver plowed into people in a busy shopping area in Leipzig on Monday, May 4, in what officials believe was a deliberate attack.
Authorities said an unspecified number of other people sustained less serious injuries, and they detained the driver in the car. Prosecutors said the driver, a 33-year-old German citizen, is under investigation on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, according to the AP report.
The AP roundup places the Leipzig incident in a broader pattern of vehicle-ramming cases from recent years around the world. Last summer, it reported, at least 37 people were injured when a car was driven onto the sidewalk and into a crowd outside a Los Angeles nightclub, and prosecutors later filed dozens of attempted murder charges against the 29-year-old they said intentionally rammed the crowd. The case, the AP said, remained pending.
The review also described a major attack in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025, when at least 15 people were killed and dozens were injured after a vehicle was driven into pedestrians in the French Quarter. In that case, the AP said the FBI identified the suspect as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who was killed in a firefight with police.
In other reported incidents, the AP said a driver plowed into a crowd of Liverpool soccer fans who were celebrating the city team’s Premier League championship, injuring more than 45 people. It also reported deaths and large numbers of injuries in cases involving Christmas markets and sports venues, including a Germany attack in Magdeburg on Dec. 20, 2024, and a sports-complex attack in southern China in November 2024 that killed 35.
The AP’s compiled list also includes examples from London, including a case in 2021 in which four members of a Muslim family were killed after an attacker hit them with a pickup truck, and a 2017 case in which Darren Osborne drove a van into worshippers outside a mosque in Finsbury Park. The roundup further described the 2017 London Bridge/Borough Market attack in which three attackers drove a van into pedestrians before stabbing people, killing eight people, and separate incidents in which attackers used vehicles to hit crowds in places such as Las Ramblas in Barcelona in 2017.
Beyond Europe, the AP review also cited cases in North America and elsewhere, such as an incident in Vancouver in April 2025 in which a suspect was charged after an Audi SUV hit people attending a festival, killing 11 and injuring 32, according to the roundup. It also included older examples, including a 2009 attack in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands aimed at the Dutch royal family and a 2006 university incident in North Carolina involving a vehicle that slightly injured nine people.
Across the cases cited by the AP, investigators and prosecutors have faced a recurring challenge: determining intent and motive in attacks that can leave large numbers of people injured and dead in minutes. For authorities, the Leipzig case adds to that continuing record, with prosecutors saying they are pursuing suspicions of murder and attempted murder against the detained driver.