Sunday evening was supposed to be the end of a huge folk festival for Denmark: On that day, the bike-crazy Danes said goodbye to the Tour de France after three days. The Crown Prince himself had planned a party on the royal yacht Dannebrog.
—SZ-Karte: Mainka/Mapcreator.io/HERE
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The shock came in the early evening hours. Shots had been fired in Field’s, the shopping center in the Amager district in southern Copenhagen, where many people had arranged to meet to eat and shop. Field’s is Denmark’s largest shopping mall, less than 10 minutes by metro from the city centre. Video images showed hundreds of people running out of the mall.
In the end, several people are dead and others injured. The exact number of victims is not yet known, said Søren Thomassen, a spokesman for the Danish police, in the evening. He announced that the police had arrested a shooter: It was a “22-year-old ethnic Dane”. However, it is not yet known whether the arrested person acted alone.
The police have launched a manhunt in the Copenhagen area and on the island of Zealand. Nothing can be said about the motive either, it said. The police did not want to rule out on Sunday evening that it was an act of terrorism. Thomassen asked for patience, at the moment you are still in a “phase of certain confusion”.
The TV showed pictures of people crying and hugging. Of the Broadcasts TV2 published an interview with eyewitness Mahdi Al-Wazni, who said he saw and spoke to the perpetrator. The man was wearing hunting or military clothing. “He seemed very violent and angry,” said Mahdi Al-Wazni. “He spoke to me directly and said it wasn’t real while I was filming him. He seemed very proud of what he was doing.” A photograph taken by the eyewitness shows a man in long Bermuda shorts and a dark shirt holding a weapon that could be a hunting rifle or shotgun.
“I saw blood on the floor and broken windows”
A woman named Karina Ulfkær told public broadcaster DR that her daughter called her from inside the mall. “She said: Mom, they shoot, they shoot,” said Karina Ulfkær. “She cried and cried.” An eyewitness named Isabella reported how she and her boyfriend hid in a toilet for two hours. Previously, she had heard up to ten shots. On the way out there were traces of the shooting everywhere: “I saw blood on the floor and broken windows.”
The two had been to Field’s to pass the time until British pop singer Harry Styles’ concert. The concert was supposed to take place in the Royal Arena, a few hundred meters away only from the shopping center. Shortly before 8 a.m., the organizer announced that the concert should start at 9 p.m. as planned. “The police gave us the green light.” However, at that time the subway was no longer running and large parts of the area were cordoned off by the police. The concert was canceled shortly thereafter.
The Danish royal family called for cohesion. “The situation requires unity and care, and we thank the police, the emergency services and the health authorities for their quick and effective action during these hours,” said a statement from Queen Margrethe II and the crown prince couple – Frederik and Mary – late Sunday evening.
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