BYSTANDERS THROW CHAIRS AT KNIFE MAN
A pursuer finally subdues him with a long pole
PASSERS-BY gave chase and used makeshift weapons to tackle a knife-wielding man, who killed one person and injured six others at a supermarket here on Friday, witnesses of the chaotic scene said.
“A crowd of 30 people ran out of the supermarket. They yelled that someone had been stabbed. We saw a man go past with a big knife, like a butcher’s knife, in his hand,” said Ralf Woyna.
Woyna had been sitting at a cafe opposite the entrance to the shop where the chase began.
“Two customers, who also looked Middle Eastern, took all the chairs from the cafe and ran after him. I lost sight of them for a minute and heard a shout of Allahuakbar in the distance, I knew it was an attack straight away.”
An amateur handphone video published by news site Spiegel Online showed a handful of pursuers confronting the attacker, a bearded man wearing a T-shirt and jeans, amid traffic.
They could be seen hurling chairs at him to keep him at bay as he brandished the knife.
According to Spiegel Online, a 35-year-old man injured during the struggle was the one who finally forced the suspect to the ground using a pole.
Plainclothes policeman were able to capture the man, who was lightly injured.
Newspaper Bild published images of the man handcuffed on the ground and sitting in the back seat of a police car, a bloodied bag pulled over his head.
Media reported that investigators were looking into a militant motive for the attack, and Mayor Olaf Scholz said that he had been motivated by “hate”.
The suspect arrived in the country as an asylum seeker and lived in a centre for migrants.
The man struck at 3.10pm on Friday afternoon at a popular supermarket. He stormed into the supermarket with a “huge knife”, a woman told news channel NTV, gesturing to show that the weapon was about 50cm long.
Police said he struck out “wildly” at people around him, killing a 50year-old man believed to be a German citizen and wounding four others, a 50-year-old woman and men aged 19, 56, 57 and 64. AFP