Car crashes into Dutch royal parade

[Bounty]

14 hit, 2 or 4 killed, may have been attempted regicide

A car has crashed into the crowd at a parade that included Queen Beatrix and the Dutch royal family, injuring many people, although no royals were hurt.

Unconfirmed reports said the driver deliberately tried to ram an open bus carrying Queen Beatrix, but missed.

The black Suzuki injured at least 14 people before crashing into a monument.

The royals were attending celebrations for the Queen's Day national holiday in the city of Apeldoorn, about 90km (56 miles) from Amsterdam.

Police in Apeldoorn have so far declined to comment on the incident.

Queen's Day has been cancelled and a press conference is to follow. The footage is already on Youtube; the car was pretty smashed up even before it hit the crowd. Very, very bizarre.

[Tribun]

Just look at this picture and you realize how horrible the whole thing is and with how much speed the car has run over people.
http://www.n-tv.de/img/1146826_src_pathB.NCmA.jpg

[Eldalote]

A little more news... Not much known so far though.
from here.

Car plows into Queen's Day parade - many casualties
Published: 30 April 2009 12:39 | Changed: 30 April 2009 12:45
ANP / Radio Netherlands Worldwide
A car has ploughed into the crowd watching the Queen's Day in Apeldoorn. An unknown number of spectators were injured, some of them seriously. (+ video)

There are also reports of fatalities, including children.

Reporters on the spot say the car drove at high speed, hitting a number of people that who were thrown into the air. The car crashed into a monument for queen Wilhelmina. The driver is still inside the car. Emergency services are rushing to the spot to provide aid to the victims.

Eye witnesses speculated that the accident may have been an attempted attack on the royal family. The incident occurred minutes after a luxury coach carrying the royal family passed the spot. The coach was stopped and all Queen's Day activities have been cancelled.

I really didn't think someone would try to assassinate the Dutch royal family (If that is it...)
An other news site reports gunshots were heard, but that site is dutch only.

[Bounty]

The driver is still inside the car.

He's since been cut out of the wreck and arrested. No info on him yet. The wreck was broken up on-the-spot but no explosives were found.

The tally has also been updated, still two dead but now 23 injured.

[CJvR]

He's since been cut out of the wreck and arrested. ... The tally has also been updated, still two dead but now 23 injured.

To bad the car didn't catch fire before they got the lunatic out.

[Big Orange]

Grand Theft Auto getting implicated in the incident in five, four, three, two, one.

But none the less this is a very weird, unfortunate, and senseless occurance and I fail to see how a speeding car would've really worked when the targets were in a bigger, elevated open top bus. Most likely a random weirdo high on something trying to get infamous.

[Bounty]

He's since been cut out of the wreck and arrested. ... The tally has also been updated, still two dead but now 23 injured.

To bad the car didn't catch fire before they got the lunatic out.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I take it it's just random internet tough guy bullshit?

[Thanas]

CJvR is probably believing the myths about cars exploding when catching fire.

So yeah, random internet tough guy BS.

[Big Orange]

The Hollywood myth of the exploding car has lead to more injuries and perhaps death, with injured people getting roughly dragged out of crashed cars to their detriment when they should've been removed from the smashed vehicle much more carefully (and with cutting equipment).

[Tribun]

The Hollywood myth of the exploding car has lead to more injuries and perhaps death, with injured people getting roughly dragged out of crashed cars to their detriment when they should've been removed from the smashed vehicle much more carefully (and with cutting equipment).

You mean this myth?
Every car is a Pinto

[cosmicalstorm]

There are several pictures showing a little girl literally flying to the ground

[Losonti Tokash]

CJvR is probably believing the myths about cars exploding when catching fire.

So yeah, random internet tough guy BS.

Or, more likely, he was hoping the driver would be burned to death. He didn't say anything about an explosion and I sort of doubt that's what he meant seeing how that would hurt more innocent bystanders.

[Bounty]

CJvR is probably believing the myths about cars exploding when catching fire.

So yeah, random internet tough guy BS.

Or, more likely, he was hoping the driver would be burned to death. He didn't say anything about an explosion and I sort of doubt that's what he meant seeing how that would hurt more innocent bystanders.

Whatever he meant, it was a dumbshit one-liner to show what a RAH RAH tough guy he is.

---

Four dead, five with major injuries, eight with minor. The driver has now been said to have acted deliberately, but he is undergoing surgery and can't be questioned for the time being.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Why would anyone want to assasinate the DUTCH Royal Family?

[Thanas]

^Turns out there are nutbags even in the netherlands?

[The Yosemite Bear]

why do I hope this was just a drunk driver, and not somebody with an adgenda? And If it is somebody with an adgenda, please let it be a diagnosable delusional padded room guy like Mr. McNaughton?

[CaptainChewbacca]

why do I hope this was just a drunk driver, and not somebody with an adgenda? And If it is somebody with an adgenda, please let it be a diagnosable delusional padded room guy like Mr. McNaughton?

It sounds like it was too hard to get into the parade area for it to be a simple misunderstanding or drunken error.

[CJvR]

Five dead now, and five more with lifethreatening injuries - including the driver himself. Of the 12 injured three were children.

Strange...
No known terrorist connections.
No explosives in the car.
No criminal record.
No mental illness - until now at least.

Just woke up this morning and decided that today was a good day for regicide apparently.

[Atlan]

Hm, when I first heard this, my first thought wasn't "Assassination!" it was actually "Old dude loses control of car in panic!" because such things have happened before. Turns out I was very wrong.
And yeah, why would anyone want to kill our royal family? They're pretty much universally liked. Can't think of a reason for it.
As CJvR said, right now it appears the guy just thought it was a good day to try and kill the queen...

[tim31]

He had recently lost his job an was facing eviction

Not posting the rest of the article because it contains nothing else new.

[The Yosemite Bear]

ahh, sid viscious style scuicide then (taking others out with you)

[Bounty]

The driver died of his injuries during the night. He has now been identified as Karst Tates, a loner who admitted before he died that his attack was aimed at the royal family.

The driver of a car that killed five people after crashing into crowds watching a Dutch royal parade has died from his injuries.

The man, a Dutch national, died in hospital overnight, officials said.

Karst Tates, 38, was critically injured after his attempted attack on the royal family in Apeldoorn on Thursday.

His car crashed into a monument after ploughing into bystanders who were marking Queen's Day in the town, some 90km (56 miles) east of Amsterdam.

Television pictures showed members of the royal family looking on in horror from an open-topped bus as the incident unfolded metres away from them.

Twelve people remain injured in hospital.

Officials said on Thursday the driver had confessed to police that he intended to attack the royal family.

After searching the car and his home, investigators ruled out terrorism as a motive and said it appeared he had acted alone.

This puts the total death toll on six. Three more are severely injured but apparently not critical, eight have minor injuries.

The only image of the driver released AFAIK. Warning, the image is from right after the crash and somewhat graphic.

[Atlan]

The only image of the driver released AFAIK. Warning, the image is from right after the crash and somewhat graphic.

Some right-wing morons in the US had already begun speculating that it was very convenient that he died so quickly. Now we know why: No airbag, and from the looks of it, no safety belt either.
To all the looney bin right-wing fucknut idiots out there, he died of internal injuries. That's also why he was lucid enough to talk to the police before he was carted off to the hospital. Please go back to pretending that the moonlandings never happened.

[open_sketchbook]

Hate to break it to you but most of the "conspiracy theory" types are, sadly, liberal in their values. We shouldn't do as the right wing does and label everyone we don't like as having the opposite political views, and recognize that just because they vote the same way we do doesn't mean they're firing on all cylinders.

It's part of the reason I'm a little more cautious about political allegiance than most; the right wing might have fundamentalists, but the left wing has conspiracy theorists and traditional medicine hippy types, and I'm not sure who I hate more.

[freker]

The current death toll is now 7, a member of the marechaussee died in the hospital.
The Royal family will attend at the 4th and 5th may (remebrance day and liberation day)

The disaster was (and is) a real shock for us, a lot the festivities were immideately stopped.

I would have liked the driver to have remained alive, it might have given some insight on why a person would do such a thing.