COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A gunman opened fire in a busy shopping center in the Danish capital on Sunday, killing several people and wounding several others, police said.
A 22-year-old Dane has been arrested, Copenhagen police inspector Søren Thomassen told reporters, adding that there was no indication that anyone else was involved in the attack, although police were still investigating.
Gun violence is relatively rare in Denmark.
Thomassen said it was too early to speculate on a motive for the shooting, which happened late in the afternoon at Field’s, one of Scandinavia’s largest shopping centers and located on the outskirts of the Danish capital. When the shots rang out, some people hid in shops and others fled in a panicked stampede, witnesses said.
“This is pure terror. It’s terrible,” said Hans Christian Stolz, a 53-year-old IT consultant who brought his daughters to see Harry Styles perform at a concert scheduled for Sunday night near the mall. “You might wonder how a human could do this to another human being, but it’s beyond… beyond anything possible.”
Thomassen did not give a specific number of casualties, except to say that several people were killed and several were injured. He said the suspect was “ethnically Danish,” a phrase usually used to mean someone is white.
Danish broadcaster TV2 released a grainy photo of the alleged gunman, a man wearing knee-length shorts and a tank top and holding what appeared to be a rifle in his right hand.
“He looked very violent and angry,” eyewitness Mahdi Al-Wazni told TV2. “He talked to me and said (the rifle) wasn’t real while I was taking pictures of him. He seemed very proud of what he was doing.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the Scandinavian country had been hit by a “vicious attack”.
“It’s incomprehensible. Heartbreaking. Pointless, she said. “Our beautiful and usually so safe capital was changed in a split second.”
Footage from the scene showed people running from the shopping center and TV2 published a photo of a man being carried on a stretcher. Following the shooting, a large contingent of heavily armed police patrolled the area, with several fire engines also parked outside the mall.
Laurits Hermansen told Danish broadcaster DR that he was in a clothing store in the shopping center with his family when he heard “three, four shots. Really loud bangs. It sounded like the gunshots could be heard right next to the store.
The shopping center is on the outskirts of Copenhagen directly opposite a metro station for a line that connects the city center with the international airport. A major highway also runs adjacent to the mall.
Organizers canceled the Harry Styles concert, which was planned at the nearby Royal Arena, at the behest of the police.
On Snapchat, Styles wrote: “My team and I are praying for everyone involved in the Copenhagen mall shooting. I am shocked. I love X.”
The royal palace announced that a reception with Crown Prince Frederik related to the Tour de France cycling race has been cancelled. The first three stages of the race were held in Denmark this year. The reception was to be held on the royal yacht, which was docked in Sonderborg, the town where the third leg finished.
In a joint statement, Queen Margrethe, her son Crown Prince Frederik and his wife Crown Princess Mary said: “We still do not know the full extent of the tragedy, but it is already clear that more people have lost their lives and that even more are injured.”
“The situation calls for unity and care,” they said in a statement.
The shooting came a week after a mass shooting in neighboring Norway, where police said a Norwegian of Iranian descent opened fire at an LGBTQ festival, killing two and wounding more than 20.
Although the death toll in Copenhagen on Sunday was not clear, it appeared to be the worst gun attack in Denmark since February 2015, when a 22-year-old man was killed in a shootout with police after opening fire in the capital, which killed two people and injured five police officers.
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Ritter reported from Unterseen, Switzerland.
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