A shooting at a mall in Copenhagen has left three people dead, local authorities said Sunday. Several others are wounded, with three hospitalized in critical condition.
The shooting unfolded on Sunday at multiple locations inside Field’s, a shopping center in the Danish capital. Social media footage showed people running through the mall and heavily armed law enforcement officers on the scene.
At a press conference early on Monday morning, Copenhagen Head of Police Soren Thomassen said the victims include “a man in his 40s and two young people.”
A young Danish man has been arrested in “undramatic fashion” in connection with the shooting, according to Thomassen, and is currently the only suspect.
“We are convinced that the 22-year-old suspect arrested was the shooter, he was carrying a rifle and ammunition,” he said, adding that investigators “believe the suspect was not working with others, but that until they are absolutely certain they will not rule it out.”
Police arrested the suspect thirteen minutes after receiving the first emergency call about the shooting, Thomassen said.
Eyewitness Joachim Olsen, a former Danish politician and athlete, told CNN that he was on his way to a gym inside Field’s when he saw large groups of people exiting the mall.
“It looked like something, I’m sorry to say, like something you would see from a school shooting in the US, people coming out with their hands above their heads,” Olsen said.
“You have people running out, looking for friends and calling friends and family members who were inside, some speaking to friends who were inside,” he said. “Old people with their arms around the necks of people carrying them out, their feet just being dragged across the floor.”
Outside the mall, Olsen spoke to a man who spoke to an off-duty paramedic whose arms “were covered in blood up to his elbows.”
“He wanted to go back in but the police wouldn’t let him,” Olsen said.
According to Olsen, security tried to get the crowds to move away from the mall.
“At one point we were rushed away. The police came and said ‘Run, run, run, they’re still shooting in there.'”
People run out of the Field’s shopping center in Copenhagen, Denmark on July 3, 2022.
A spokesman for Rigshospitalet, Denmark’s largest hospital, told CNN that the hospital had taken in several victims and had called in extra staff to deal with the emergency.
A phone line for victims has been opened and police said they have set up a central location where eyewitnesses can get support and report their experiences to law enforcement officials.
Danish police said Sunday they had evacuated thousands from the Royal Arena venue next to the mall. The arena had been scheduled to hold a Harry Styles concert, but this was canceled following the shooting.
In a statement Sunday night, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen sent sympathy to the wounded, their relatives and the bereaved, as well as “all the Danes who were close to these frightening events.”
“We have all been brutally ripped from the bright summer that had just begun. It is incomprehensible. Heartbreaking. Meaningless. Our beautiful and usually so safe capital was changed in a split second,” Frederiksen said.
In a statement, Denmark’s Royal House said, “Our thoughts and deepest sympathy are with the victims, their relatives and all those affected by the tragedy.”
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, also expressed solidarity with the people of Denmark.
“Thinking of everyone in #Copenhagen tonight after horrific reports of several people killed in a shooting in a shopping mall. We are with you Denmark,” she tweeted.
Gun violence is relatively rare in Denmark. Copenhagen’s last major shooting incident was in 2015, when a gunman attacked a free speech forum featuring controversial cartoonist Lars Vilks, killing one man and wounding three others. [CNN]
