A gunman who killed three people when he opened fire in a crowded shopping center acted alone and apparently chose his victims at random, Danish police said on Monday, all but ruling out the attack as a “terrorist act”.
Authorities have filed preliminary charges of murder and attempted murder against a 22-year-old Dane man who will be held 24 hours in a secure psychiatric facility while authorities investigate the crime, prosecutor Soren Harbo told reporters. Police said the man was known to mental health services, without providing further details.
Police have not identified a motive for Sunday’s attack at one of Scandinavia’s largest shopping centers. The suspect, carrying a rifle and a knife, was quickly arrested, and Copenhagen Police Chief Inspector. Soren Thomassen said the man also had access to another gun. He said the firearms were obtained illegally, but gave no further details.
“It was the worst possible nightmare,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday, calling the attack “unusually brutal.”
30 people were injured, most of them in a panicked stampede
The three killed were a 17-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl, both Danes, and a 47-year-old Russian, according to Thomassen. Four other people were hospitalized with gunshot wounds and are in critical but stable condition. A total of 30 people were injured, most in the panicked stampede after the shots were fired at the Field shopping center on the outskirts of the Danish capital.
Gun violence is rare in Denmark. The last shooting of this magnitude was in February 2015, when a 22-year-old man was killed in a shootout with police following an attack in the capital that left two people dead and five police officers injured.
Women embrace outside Copenhagen’s Field shopping center where a gunman killed three people and wounded several others. Police say they do not believe the shooting is terrorism-related. (Olafur Steinar Gestsson/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images)
The suspect, who cannot be named under a court order, appeared before a judge Monday in a packed courtroom to face three preliminary counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder. They fall short of formal charges, but allow authorities to keep a person in custody while an investigation is underway.
The judge asked the media to leave and held the detention hearing behind closed doors. It was not clear how the suspect confessed. He will remain in custody until July 28, the police said.
Thomassen said police have no indication that anyone helped the shooter and his motive remains unclear.
“There is nothing in our investigation, nor in the documents that we have reviewed, nor in the things that we have found, nor in the witness statements that we have obtained, that proves that this was an act of terrorism,” said Thomassen, who previously identified a suspect as “ethnic Dane”, a phrase usually used to mean someone is white.
“He seemed very violent and angry”
Danish broadcaster TV2 released a grainy photo of the suspected gunman, a man wearing knee-length shorts, a vest or sleeveless shirt 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 spoke to me and said it [the rifle] it’s not real while i was shooting it. He seemed very proud of what he was doing.”
Pictures from the scene showed people running from the shopping center where people laid flowers on Monday.
Flowers and candles are seen Monday near the scene of the shooting. (Thibault Savary/AFP/Getty Images)
Chassandra Stoltz, an 18-year-old student who was on her way to a Harry Styles concert scheduled for Sunday night nearby, described a stampede when shots rang out. At first she, her sister, and her father thought it was because someone had spotted Stiles, but soon realized the panic, including a man grabbing his child from a stroller in the chaos.
“People were leading us to the exit sign and we ran up on the roof and stayed there for a while and then people were panicking everywhere and people were crying,” Stoltz said.
Styles’ concert was canceled because of the shooting.
“I’m shocked,” says music star Harry Styles
On Snapchat, Styles wrote: “My team and I are praying for everyone involved in the Copenhagen mall shooting. I am shocked. I love H.”
Field’s multi-storey 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.
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.
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