The police prevented the onlookers from coming and prevented the locals from returning to their homes.
Copenhagen, Denmark:
Several people were killed and several injured in a shooting at a mall in Copenhagen on Sunday, with Danish police saying they have arrested a man in his twenties.
“We now know that many people have been killed,” Copenhagen Police Chief Soren Thomasson told a news conference on Sunday evening.
Thomson described the arrested suspect as a 22-year-old “ethnic Dane”, but said it was too early to establish a motive.
“We investigate it as an act, where we can’t rule it out, it’s terror,” the police chief said.
They said they had no indication that the man had colluded with others, and that police were increasing their presence both in shopping malls and in Copenhagen, he said.
The attack came two days after this year’s Tour de France cycling competition began in Copenhagen, and Tour organizers issued a statement expressing their sympathies.
“The entire caravan of the Tour de France sends its deepest condolences to the victims and their families,” it said.
Images of the scene showed parents with their children running away from the building and ambulance personnel carrying people on stretchers.
Witnesses quoted by Danish media said they saw more than 100 people running towards the exit of the mall as the first shots were fired.
Thea Schmidt, who was in the mall at the time of the attack, told broadcaster TV2: “We saw several people suddenly rushing to the exit and then we heard an explosion.” “Then we ran outside the field too.”
‘We heard gunshots’
Police had urged people in the building to wait for their arrival, calling on others to stay away from the area.
The police also asked witnesses to get in touch with them and called people who were visiting shopping malls to contact loved ones to reassure them.
“All of a sudden we heard gunshots, I heard 10 shots and we ran as far as we could to take shelter in the toilet,” Isabella told public broadcaster DR. She said that she hid in the mall for two hours.
Other eyewitnesses described the gunman as a man about 1.8 meters tall with a hunting rifle.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said around 7:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) the streets around the mall were closed, the Metro stopped and a helicopter was flying overhead.
A heavily armed police officer prevented the locals from returning to their homes.
At the nearby Royal Arena, a concert was scheduled for the evening with British singer Harry Styles.
Soon after the shooting the organizers announced that it would “proceed according to plan”, but later announced its cancellation after criticism.
“My team and I pray for everyone involved in the Copenhagen shopping mall shooting. I am shocked,” Styles said in a Snapchat post.
The shooting comes a week after a gunman opened fire near a gay bar in Oslo, neighboring Norway, killing two people and injuring 21 others.
In February of 2015, two people were killed and five were injured in a series of Islamism-inspired shootings in Copenhagen.