BERLIN — A driver rammed a car into a crowd Monday in the southwestern German city of Mannheim, and authorities said two people were killed and 10 others injured, five of them severely.

A 40-year-old German from the nearby state of Rhineland-Palatinate was detained and in a hospital after being injured, State Interior Minister Thomas Strobl of Baden-Württemberg, where Mannheim is based, told German news agency dpa.

He later told reporters in Mannheim that “as far as the specific motivation of the crime is concerned, we have no indication of an extremist or religious background at the moment. The motivation could rather be based in the person of the perpetrator himself.”

Police also did not immediately characterize the incident as an attack. Cars have been used as deadly weapons in several acts of violence in recent months in Germany. Police said earlier that “indications of a second perpetrator cannot be confirmed at this stage of the investigation.” They said there was no more danger to the public.

— The Associated Press