COPENHAGEN: Three people were killed and several wounded in a shooting at a Copenhagen mall Sunday, Danish police said, adding they had arrested one suspect, a 22-year-old Dane.
The young man, who according to witnesses was armed with a large rifle, was arrested peacefully shortly after police arrived at the large Fields shopping mall, located between the city centre and Copenhagen airport.
“There are three dead and several injured, three of them in critical condition,” Copenhagen police chief Soren Thomassen told a news conference.
The motives of the suspect, described by police as a 22-year-old “ethnic Dane”, remain unclear.
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He was known to the police “but only peripherally,” Thomassen said. “He s not someone we particularly know.”
The three dead were a man in his forties and two young people whose ages were not specified.
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On social networks people had been speculating about a racist motive, or some other motive, the head of the investigation said, “but I cannot say that we have anything which supports that at this moment.”
Police however confirmed they were investigating videos posted online which claimed to show the suspect with weapons and pointing a gun at his head.
Earlier Thomassen said police “can t exclude that it s terror” but they believed the alleged shooter acted alone.
Images from the scene showed parents carrying their children as they fled the building and ambulance personnel taking people away on stretchers.
