Shortly after a car plowed into a crowd of pedestrians in Modena, Italy on Saturday, four Italian civilians stepped in and tackled the vehicle’s driver, pulling him to the ground, according to the city’s mayor.
“The madman, I don’t know what to call him, the criminal who committed this act, he got out of the car brandishing a knife,” Mayor Massimo Mezzetti told state-owned news agency RAI. “Four citizens, whom I thank, captured him and handed him over to law enforcement.”
In his initial statement, Mezzetti said the car rammed into a crowd on Via Emilia, a busy street in the center of the northern Italian city of Modena. Several pedestrians suffered serious injuries, he added, including one woman whose legs were amputated after being struck by the car head-on.
At a press conference, Prefect Fabrizio Triolo told reporters that a total of seven people were injured by the car. An additional person told Reuters they were injured after the driver allegedly attacked him with a knife.
Authorities said two tourists, one from Germany and one from Poland, were among those wounded when the car plowed into pedestrians.
