Three people have been killed and several others wounded after a knifeman went on a rampage in southern Germany.
Police arrested the suspect, identified as a 24-year-old Somali man, after shooting him in the leg following the attack at Barbarossaplatz in Wurzburg on Friday afternoon.
Bavaria’s top security official Joachim Herrmann said the injured include a young boy, whose father was probably among the dead. The suspect was in psychiatric treatment before the attack and had been known to police, he added.
Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and holding him at bay with chairs and sticks.
A woman who said she had witnessed the attack told German RTL television that the police then stepped in.
Julia Runze said: ‘He had a really big knife with him and was attacking people. And then many people tried to throw chairs or umbrellas or cellphones at him and stop him.
‘The police then approached him and I think a shot was fired, you could hear that clearly. Yes, and in any case they caught him.’
Bavaria’s governor Markus Soeder expressed shock at the news of the attack, writing on Twitter: ‘We grieve with the victims and their families.’
Lower Franconia police said on Twitter: ‘The attacker was overpowered after police used a firearm
‘There are no indications of a second suspect. There is NO danger to the population.’
Footage posted on social media showed a young man seemingly holding a knife being warded off by other men holding chairs until police arrived. Another clip appeared to show blood on the ground.
The videos matched the reported location of the attacks on and around Wuerzburg’s central Barbarossaplatz, though it was not immediately possible to confirm when they had been made.
Wurzburg is a city of about 130,000 people located between Munich and Frankfurt.
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