Eight injured in Modena car ramming, police probe motive

A car plowed into pedestrians in central Modena on Saturday, leaving eight people injured and turning a busy stretch near Largo Porta Bologna and Via Emilia Centro into a cordoned-off emergency scene. Four of the victims were reported in critical condition, while Mayor Massimo Mezzetti said no one was killed.

Mezzetti said one woman was pinned against a shop window and required the amputation of both legs. Ambulances treated the wounded in the street as police, Carabinieri and Financial Police officers sealed off the area and worked to secure the scene in the northern Italian city.

Authorities identified the driver as a 31-year-old man who was detained and questioned. Investigators were examining whether he had been under the influence of substances or had acted deliberately, a question that quickly became central as the public tried to understand whether the crash was a random collision or an intentional attack.

Early reports said the man got out of the car brandishing a knife and fled before passers-by gave chase and stopped him. Bystanders then helped restrain him until police took him into custody, underscoring how quickly ordinary pedestrians were forced into the role of first responders in the middle of the city center.

Mezzetti said the man was born in Bergamo and raised in the province of Modena, and described him as having Maghreb origins. The remarks came as officials moved cautiously around motive and intent, with the investigation still focused on the driver’s condition, his actions after the collision and the sequence of events that unfolded along one of Modena’s busiest central streets.