Three dead after Dutch tram shooting.

Suspect arrested in city of Utrecht

UTRECHT, NETHERLANDS >> Gunshots shattered the tram ride in a heavily Muslim neighborhood of this old Dutch city. The prime minister called it possible terrorism. SWAT teams rushed in, residents were ordered indoors, and all mosques closed as police sought a killer in a country that had been spared largescale terrorist attacks.

Suddenly the mayhem Monday in the Netherlands seemed as if it might be another planned public slaughter in a seemingly tranquil part of the world, like the mosque massacre that had traumatized the people of Christchurch, New Zealand.

The suspect, it turned out, was a Turkish immigrant described by acquaintances as a sometimes-religious man with a criminal record who may have been entangled in a dispute with his ex-wife.

It was about 10:30 a.m. when a gunman opened fire on the tram in Utrecht’s Kanaleneiland neighborhood, heavily populated by Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. Someone slammed on the emergency brakes, and other passengers screamed, clamoring to escape, according to witness accounts. At least three people were killed and five injured, some by shattering glass, and the assailant stepped off the tram and fled.

“I saw a woman lying outside the tram,” said Daan Molenaar, a witness. “She was being helped by passers-by leaving their cars. Then the suspect came out of the tram with a gun in his hand, and I thought I’ve got to get out of here.”

The suspect was later identified by police as Gokmen Tanis, 37, an immigrant from the central Turkish town of Yozgat. Tanis had been arrested before and is facing a rape charge, according to the Dutch national broadcaster and people who know him.

Police conducted houseto-house raids in the area and arrested Tanis eight hours later, just as officials were holding a news conference on the attack.

“He’s very religious,” but also “a real guy of the streets, aggressive as well,” Alptekin Akdogan, who said he knew Tanis, told The New York Times. He said he and Tanis had grown up in the Kanaleneiland neighborhood.

Zabit Elmaci, 39, said he used to work with Tanis, washing dishes in a restaurant called Abrikoos. He described Tanis as “always in trouble.”

“I don’t remember him as a religious person, but about two years ago he started acting weird, so I gradually stopped seeing him,” Elmaci said.

Tanis was born in Yozgat, according to both Akdogan and Zeki Baran, director of the Netherlands Yozgat Federation.

“We don’t know much about him, except for that his father told us that he had not been in touch with his family for a long time,” Baran said. A relative of the suspect is a candidate for mayor of Yozgat, he had added.

While authorities had not ruled out terrorism by Monday night, the panic that convulsed Utrecht, a city of 330,000 with a diverse population, appeared to partly reflect heightened nerves from the Christchurch killings three days earlier.