A car stands in front of a store, guarded by police in Heidelberg, Germany on Saturday.

A man apparently drove a car into pedestrians in a central square in the German city of Heidelberg on Saturday, injuring three people, then fled and was shot after being tracked down by officers, police said.

One of the three people hit outside a bakery on Saturday afternoon was seriously injured, police spokeswoman Anne Baas said.

The man, who is believed to have been carrying a knife, then got out of his rental car, another police spokesman, Norbert Schaetzle, told n-tv television. He was intercepted by a police patrol and shot by an officer following a short standoff. He has been taken to a hospital.

There was no immediate word on the man’s possible motives or where he came from.

Schaetzle said he couldn’t confirm local media reports that the man was mentally disturbed, but said a “terrorist background is not suspected and the man appears to have acted alone”.