A gunman who killed three people when he opened fire on a crowded shopping mall acted alone and apparently selected his victims at random, Danish police said on Monday, but ruled out the attack was a ” act of terrorism “.
Authorities have filed preliminary charges of murder and attempted murder against a 22-year-old Dane, who will be detained for 24 days in a safe mental health center while authorities investigate the crime, prosecutor Soren Harbo told reporters . Police said the man was known to mental health services without giving further details.
Police have not identified the cause of Sunday’s attack on one of Scandinavia’s largest shopping malls. The suspect, who was carrying a rifle and a knife, was quickly arrested, and Copenhagen police chief Insp. Soren Thomassen said the man also had access to another weapon. He said the firearms were obtained illegally but gave no further details.
“It was the worst nightmare possible,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday, calling the attack “unusually brutal”.
30 people injured, most in a panic attack
The three murders were a 17-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl, both Danes, and a 47-year-old Russian man, according to Thomassen. Four more people were hospitalized with gunshot wounds and were in critical but stable condition. A total of 30 people were injured, most in a panic after gunfire erupted at Field’s shopping center on the outskirts of the Danish capital.
Armed 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 after an attack in the capital that left two people dead and five policemen injured.
The women hug outside the Copenhagen’s Field shopping mall, where a gunman killed three people and injured several. Police say they do not believe the shooting was related to terror. (Olafur Steinar Gestsson / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP / Getty Images)
The suspect, who cannot be appointed by court order, was brought before a judge on Monday in a courtroom full of plaintiffs to face three preliminary murder charges and four attempted murder charges. They are one step below formal charges, but allow authorities to keep a person in custody during an investigation.
The judge asked the media to leave and held the arrest hearing behind closed doors. It was not immediately clear how the suspect begged. Police will remain in custody until July 28.
Thomassen said police had no clues that anyone was helping the gunman and his motive is still unclear.
“There is nothing in our investigation, or in the documents we have reviewed, or in the things we have found, or in the statements of the witnesses we have received, that can prove that this is an act of terrorism.” said Thomassen, who previously identified the suspect as an “ethnic Dane,” a phrase commonly used to mean someone is white.
“He looked very violent and angry”
The Danish station TV2 published a grainy photograph of the alleged gunman, a man in knee-length shorts, a vest or a sleeveless T-shirt and with 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 when I was filming it. He seemed very proud of what he was doing. “
Images of the scene showed people running outside the mall, where people laid flowers on Monday.
Flowers and candles are seen near the shooting site on Monday. (Thibault Savary / AFP / Getty Images)
Chassandra Stoltz, an 18-year-old student on her way to a Harry Styles concert that was scheduled for Sunday night nearby, described a stampede when the shots rang out. At first, she and her sister and father thought it was because someone had seen Styles, but she soon realized the panic, including a man grabbing her son from a stroller in the middle of the chaos.
“People were guiding us to the exit sign, we ran up the roof and we were stuck there for a while and then people panicked all over and people were crying,” Stoltz said.
Styles’ concert was canceled due to the shooting.
“I’m amazed,” says music star Harry Styles
On Snapchat, Styles wrote, “My team and I pray for everyone involved in the Copenhagen mall shooting. I’m shocked. Love H.”
Field’s multi-storey shopping mall is located on the outskirts of Copenhagen, just opposite a one-line metro station connecting the city center with the international airport. An important road also passes next to the mall.
The shooting came a week after a mass shooting in neighboring Norway, where police said a Norwegian man of Iranian origin opened fire during an LGBTQ festival, killing two and injuring more than 20.