The victims are a man between the ages of 40 and 50 and two young people, he said to Copenhagen police chief Søren Thomassen on Monday night in the Danish capital. Three other people were seriously injured and in critical condition. The police arrested a 22-year-old Dane.
Suspect ‘known’ to police
The suspect is known to the police, but only “peripherally,” said Thomassen in a press conference. It is not about a person “that we know particularly well”. Regarding messages in the online networks that the crime had a “racist motive,” said Thomassen, the investigators currently have no relevant information.
Police believe the perpetrator acted alone. “Until we are absolutely certain that the hypothesis is correct, we will conduct a wide-ranging investigation and maintain a massive operational presence in Copenhagen,” Thomassen said. The man had a gun and ammunition with him when he was arrested. Another weapon may have been involved.
“Incomprehensible. Heartbreaking. Pointless”
According to eyewitnesses, the perpetrator had tried to lure people into the mall by telling them, for example, that his gun wasn’t real. After the first shots, more than a hundred people fled the shopping center, as reported by the Danish media. Women with their children in their arms got to safety, rescue workers carried people away on stretchers.
The Danish royal family called for cohesion. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen condemned the act as a “cruel attack”. “We were all brutally snapped out of the bright summer we had just begun,” she explained. “It’s incomprehensible. Heartbreaking. Pointless. Our beautiful and otherwise safe capital city has been transformed in a split second.”
Source: Nachrichten
