Several people killed in shooting at mall in Denmark, police say

SOURCE: AP — A gunman opened fire in a Copenhagen shopping centre, one of the largest malls in Scandinavia, killing several people and wounding several others on Sunday, police said.

The suspect, a 22-year-old Danish man, was arrested near the Fields shopping mall, said police inspector Soren Thomassen, head of the Copenhagen police operations unit.

“We know that there are several dead” and “several injured,” Thomassen told a news conference.

He said there was nothing indicating that other suspects were involved, adding that terrorism can’t be ruled out at this stage.

Thomassen didn’t provide any further details on the victims or suspect, or say how many people were killed or wounded.

The capital’s main hospital, Rigshospitalet, had received a “small group of patients” for treatment from the incident, possibly more than three, a spokesperson told Reuters. It had called in extra staff, including surgeons and nurses, the spokesperson added.

Police said they were first alerted to the shooting at 5:36 p.m. local time (11:36 a.m. EDT). They advised people inside the mall to stay put and await police assistance, and asked other people to stay away from the area.

“We do not yet know for sure how many are injured or dead, but it is very serious,” Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, the mayor of Copenhagen, said in a post on Facebook.

Police said on Twitter that they had a “massive” presence at the mall, and appealed to the public to send in footage and other information from the scene.

Several fire department vehicles were also parked outside the mall.

Images from the scene showed people running out of the mall, and Denmark’s TV2 broadcaster shared a photo of a man being put on a stretcher.

Witnesses said people were crying and hid in shops. Laurits Hermansen told Danish broadcaster DR that he was in a clothing store at the shopping centre with his family when he heard “three-four bangs. Really loud bangs. It sounded like the shots were being fired just next to the store.”

An event in Southern Denmark to commemorate the end of the first three stages of the Tour de France cycling race, hosted by the Danish Crown Prince and with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in attendance, had been cancelled late on Sunday, the Royal House said on its website.

The mall is on the outskirts of Copenhagen just across from a subway line that connects the city centre with the international airport. A major highway also runs adjacent to Fields.

British singer Harry Styles was due to perform later in the evening at a concert venue less than a mile from the mall.

The concert will go ahead as scheduled after close dialogue with the police, and half of the audience has already entered the venue, the concert promoter Live Nation said in an emailed comment to Reuters.