Car Slams Into Royal Watchers In Holland

5 Killed, 12 Injured As Driver Careens Into Crowd Watching Bus Carrying Queen Beatrix

(AP)  A Dutch driver careened through police barriers and plowed into a crowd of merrymakers cheering their popular queen Thursday, in a premeditated assault on the royal family that killed five bystanders and injured 12, authorities said.

The speeding car, already dented apparently from catapulting bystanders into the air, passed within a few yards of the open-topped bus carrying Queen Beatrix and her family down a parade route, then smashed into a stone monument.

"I think that it has become clear that this happened with premeditation," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said.

Prosecutors said the driver, a 38-year-old man identified by Dutch media as Karst Tates, badly injured and still in his crumpled car, acknowledged targeting the queen and her family.

"The man said that his action was aimed at the royal family," said prosecutor Ludo Goossens.

Prosecutors say the suspect died of his injuries Friday morning. He'd been in critical condition since the attack during the Netherlands Queen's Day holiday.

The driver was "formally suspected of ... an attack on members of the royal house and manslaughter or murder," Goossens said, and could have faced life in prison.

The motive for the attack was unclear. Dutch media, citing neighbors, said the assailant recently was fired from his job and was to be evicted from his home. Police identified him as a 38-year-old Dutch man with no history of mental illness or police record, but they would not release his name.

Officials in Apeldoorn said the driver had a map of the queen's route.

Celebrations were canceled for Queen's Day, the national holiday that was to draw millions of people to street dances, picnics and outdoor parties under sunny skies around the country. Flags were lowered to half staff. The Dutch Embassy in Washington canceled a scheduled reception.

A shaken Queen Beatrix extended her sympathies to the victims in a brief nationally televised address. "What began as a great day has ended in a terrible tragedy that has shocked us all deeply," she said.

The driver apparently acted alone and was not linked to any terrorist or ideological group. No explosives were found in his car or in his home, said Goossens.

"From initial contact with police before the suspect was removed from the car ... we have reason to believe it was a deliberate action," Goossens told reporters.

The driver apparently tried to intercept the bus as it turned a corner to a road leading to the gates of the Het Loo palace a few hundred meters (yards) from the intersection in this eastern Dutch town.

Though the sequence of events was still murky, he apparently crashed his small black car through two sets of police barriers, smashing his windscreen and damaging the front of the vehicle even before slamming into the monument.

The final few seconds were captured on video and film by news teams following the royal family in a press bus.

Reporters saw people thrown high in the air from the impact or tumbling down the street, their broken limbs askew. First aid crews and police officers ran to the victims and applied revival techniques.

The driver, bleeding from the head and nose, was slumped against the seat when police lifted him out and put him into an ambulance.

Earlier, Apeldoorn Mayor Fred de Graaf said eight of the 13 injured were in serious condition, with two men and two women killed. Later, a third man died of his injuries, said Apeldoorn municipality spokesman Toon Schuiling. Two teenagers and a 9-year-old girl were among the severely injured.

"We are speechless that something so terrible could have happened," the queen said in a rare televised appearance. "My family, and I think everybody in the country, sympathize with the victims, their families and friends and all who have been hit so hard by this accident."

Dutch television footage showed Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife, Princess Maxima, standing at their seats in the bus's high open platform and watching in astonishment. Maxima held her hand over her mouth in apparent horror.

The bus was not hit and no one in the queen's entourage was injured.

A policeman narrowly escaped injury when he jumped off his bicycle to avoid being hit.

Shortly after the crash, investigators and a sniffer dog examined the car for explosives, then sliced off the roof of the car for a closer inspection.

Journalist Peter von de Vorst told RTL television that the incident was like watching a horrible movie.

"It was a really nice day. Then you hear a bang. Everyone looks up and you see people indeed flying through the air. This must be a joke or a strange prank. Then suddenly panic, and you realize that something really terrible has happened," he said.

Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the main Dutch cities on Wednesday night and Thursday to celebrate the national holiday, originally intended to celebrate the birthday of Beatrix's mother, Queen Juliana.

The royal family normally spends the day in a small Dutch community.

[CLoverNYC1]

I hate this country that much and I AM being prevented from leaving.
Posted by Kuei1248 at 6:14 AM : May 1, 2009
-----------------------------------------

Call me. I can arrange to have you projected into orbit.

[CLoverNYC1]

Wicked. They couldn't just do the horizontal mambo on the lawn like that UK couple?

Geez.

[xoxonl]

Perfect. The, "I know you are but what am I?" comeback. This website is too stupid for me. I should have known from this, the dumbest warning track I have ever read, "Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not CBS News stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it."

Note to self: don't read the website of a network news station. TV is for dummies.

Also, this didn't happen in Holland. It happened in The Netherlands. There is a difference. Look it up.

[weedapeapl]

we actually elected a moron as President twice in a row
Posted by excoachken at 4:33 AM : May 1, 2009

So now we made up for it by electing a DIFFERENT moron who's TWICE the moron.

[weedapeapl]

I hate this country that much and I AM being prevented from leaving.
Posted by Kuei1248 at 6:14 AM : May 1, 2009

Who's stopping you?

Has Obama started turning Americans into slaves already???

[weedapeapl]

Oh the humanity!
Posted by TheMasses03 at 9:02 AM : May 1, 2009

Hey that's my line.

[excoachken]

What better example of American arrogance than to have CBS edit out the term I used for a section of land that holds back flood waters. It makes you laugh and then cry.

[excoachken]

Thanks xoxonl for the correction. I meant to say 1/2 the size of South Carolina. But as for gunhuggerdan, I love America and plan to stay here until my grandchildren are adults. I simple wanted to point out that some Americans (of which you seem to be a prime example) are too arrogant to see that others, like the Dutch, have, at times, better ideas than what we have come up with. They learned from the tragedy of a flood in 1952, that a better system of ***** must created to prevent such a situation happening again. In the 50 years that followed, American engineers ignored the concept in favor of their own solution, which costs tremendous loss of innocent lives during Katrina. It wasn't rocket science, but a know-it-all American attitude that killed those people.

[casionova]

Yeah I dont see the relevance self defense has to this.

When standing in a small to medium sized crowd surrounded by police in an area sealed off from traffic by barriers, one does not expect to be in danger from speeding cars.

A person simply cannot watch for every danger at every moment, such behaviour would be an extreme form of paranoia.

[xoxonl]

No measure of "self defense" would have saved those people. That is the most crazy "blame the victim" crap I have ever heard. This wasn't a woman walking home alone, drunk, in 6 inch heels at 4 in the morning through a bad neighborhood. This was a crowd of people watching a parade in broad daylight in a sealed off area. That's like saying we the people in the World Trade Center should have seen the planes coming and run away. It's not healthy to be that paranoid, and it's certainly not Dutch. They are not accustomed to senseless violence here, because it rarely happens. The regional police chief was shaking so bad during her statement at the press conference that I thought she might have had parkinson's disease, but then I noticed the guy from the royal guard sitting next to her was shaking too. I felt so bad for them. What a horrific day.

[Kuei1248]

"excoachken,
Since you hate the country so much, is anyone stopping you from leaving?? Perhaps next time you visit Europe you can stay there, you will be much happier. "

I hate this country that much and I AM being prevented from leaving. Your comments are right on target excoachken. The level of stupidity in america is astonishing.

[xoxonl]

In fact, the Dutch did come to our rescue in New Orleans. Unfortunately, although they offered to do so immediately, they were only allowed to after our Army Corps of Engineers failed to plug the dam after 9 days.

The country is much smaller than South Carolina, by the way. Only slightly smaller than twice New Jersey.

[gunownerdan]

excoachken,
Since you hate the country so much, is anyone stopping you from leaving?? Perhaps next time you visit Europe you can stay there, you will be much happier.

[excoachken]

People writing here should stop giving the Dutch advice. Having visited the country 15 times, I can tell you that the only people smoking dope there are tourists stupid enough to spend money exploiting the Libertarian philosophy of a country much more advanced than ours (where impotent cavemen feel they need to have a gun to prove their manhood and we actually elected a moron as President twice in a row). Perhaps, if our ego maniacal leaders would have asked for advice from this country the size of South Carolina and totally below sea level, the tragedy of New Orleans would not have happened. But, as you can see by reading the garbage written by many here, some Americans still have too much hubris and too little humble.

[gunownerdan]

I am somewhat surprised that many comments about this horrifying story are based on assumptions and unrelated subjects.
Posted by Koen78

Welcome to the internet Koen78.
But I have to disagree regarding self defense. Self defense isn't just carrying a weapon. Self defense is always being aware of your surroundings in addition to being prepared for the worse.
In this case being aware could have helped some of the victims and in many other cases where violent criminals attack innocent people, when someone present has the ability to protect themselves and others many lives have been saved.

[xoxonl]

The comments here are particularly moronic for a page that actually requires reading. I mean, "This is what happens when you let people smoke weed"? Go back to watching cat videos on YouTube. No stoner is going to deliberately execute an act of, well, anything, but especially not an act of violence. They only things they plow through are bags of Doritos.

[xoxonl]

I am sometimes embarrassed to be American, when someone does something silly that is uniquely American. I think that's human, too. I think all people feel some internalized shame about their country of origin.

Posting a comment about how if the Dutch were allowed to carry weapons this never would have happened is just stupid and insensitive. On July 17, 2003 a man plowed into a crowded farmer's market in Santa Monica, killing 9 people. That's in America, for those of you who are puzzling right now. Disregarding, for a moment, the element of surprise and the fact that this all happened in a matter of seconds, gun versus moving automobile in a crowd of people would most certainly have resulted in more casualties. Anyway, as I said before, the guy is dead. A gun wouldn't have made him more dead. Whomever said that has been watching too many Die Hard movies.

[xoxonl]

"What kind of names are Jaap, Pim, Jeroen, Piebe, Anneke, Mareike, Foke????
Posted by dsr57"

You are the reason the US is circling the drain, troll. Really. Get a life.

[dsr57]

What kind of names are Jaap, Pim, Jeroen, Piebe, Anneke, Mareike, Foke????

[dsr57]

dsr57 : Again he was not Arab he was a White European Dutch National he was not Arab and usually terrorist perfer Bombs!

Posted by nishaboston
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LIAR ! ! !