Denmark: Shooter who killed three people in Copenhagen has “psychiatric history”

Police in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, reported Monday that the alleged perpetrator of the shooting that left three dead and four seriously injured in a shopping mall in that city has a “psychiatric history”.

The chief inspector of that force, Søren Thomassen, assured at a press conference that the assailant chose the victims “at random” and that, for the moment, no indication of “terrorist act”. “There is no indication that he has accomplices,” she added.

The three dead, according to police, are two Danish teenagers, both 17, and a 47-year-old Russian living in Denmark. Meanwhile, the four injured, in serious condition, are two Danes aged 19 and 40 and two Swedes, a 50-year-old man and a 16-year-old teenager. Other people sustained minor injuries in the stampede that followed the shooting.

The police, in parallel, considered authentic the videos of the suspect that had been circulating on social media since Sunday evening. In the images the young man is seen posing with weapons, imitating suicidal gestures or referring to a treatment with a drug prescribed by a psychiatrist “that doesn’t work”.

The suspect’s YouTube and Instagram accounts were closed overnight, AFP found.

The Danish television network TV2, for its part, published a low-quality photo of the alleged attacker, who was wearing knee-length shorts, tank top or sleeveless shirt and appeared to be carrying a rifle in his right hand.

“He looked very violent and angry,” witness Mahdi Al Wazni told TV2. “He talked to me and told me that (the gun) wasn’t real when I was shooting it. He seemed very proud of what he was doing.”

Footage of the shooting scene showed people running out of the mall and TV2 posted a photo of a man put on a stretcher. After the shooting, a large contingent of heavily armed policemen patrolled the area and several fire brigade vehicles were also present in the parking lot.

The Danish premier: “It was a cruel attack”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the Scandinavian nation was hit by a “cruel attack”.

“It’s incomprehensible. Piercing. Nonsense” he has declared. “Our beautiful and usually quiet capital changed in a split second,” she added.

The incident took place this Sunday at Field’s shopping center, located in a district between the center of the Danish capital and the airport. Police went there after receiving information about a shooting.

“There have been gunshots and several people have been shot,” he said, without specifying victims or deaths, as he confirmed the arrest of a suspect in connection with the shooting.

Danish media reported that many people left their places at high speed, shortly before 18:30 local time.

About 650 meters from the Fields is the Royal Arena, where British singer Harry Styles was supposed to give a sold out concert. Styles himself wrote on the Snapchat social network that he was “shocked” and claimed that he and his entire team were praying for all those affected.

With information from AFP, EFE and AP.

IS