Truck slams crowd in Sweden
4 people killed; one man detained; ‘act of terror,’ says premier
STOCKHOLM — A hijacked beer truck plowed into pedestrians at a central Stockholm department store Friday, killing four people, injuring 15 and sending screaming shoppers scattering in panic in what Sweden’s prime minister called a terrorist attack.
A nationwide manhunt was started, and one person was arrested after the latest use of a vehicle as a weapon in Europe. But officials would not confirm that they thought him to be the driver who steered the truck into a crowd of pedestrians.
“We have arrested a person who is of interest to us. We also released an image of a person we were looking for. The person arrested matches this description,” said Jan Evensson of the Stockholm police. “But police are still on the alert.”
Evensson would not comment on the man’s identity, and suggested no possible motives for the attack.
Nearby buildings were locked down for hours in the heart of the capital and the main train station was evacuated.
“Sweden has been attacked,” Prime Minister Stefan LofNveonrrmsaaildmin a natioÄnhallelnys televised news S“tTochkihsolimndicates that it is an
Caecnttroafl terror.”
StatiHone added, “The country is in a state of shock.”
The truck traveled for more than 500 yards along a prSotomckehnoalmde known as the DroCttitnyinHgalgl atan and smashed into a crowd outside the Ahlens department store about 3 p.m. It came to rest in the entrance to the building. TV footage showed smoke wafting out of the store after the crash.
“People were screaming and running in all directions,” said Brandon Sekitto, who was in his car nearby.
He added that the truck “drove straight into the Ahlens entrance.”
“I saw the driver, a man in black who was light around the face area,” Sekitto told the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.
“I heard how some women were screaming, ‘Run, run!’”
Although there was confusion throughout the day on the number of victims, the Stockholm City Council said in the evening that four people had been killed and 15 were wounded, nine seriously.
Authorities evacuated the nearby Central Station, a hub for regional trains and the subway system. All trains to and from the main station were halted and several large shopping malls in Stockholm were shut down. Police arrested the man in custody in Marsta, a northern Stockholm suburb close
to the internationalStockholm airport. Evensson, the Stockholm police spokesman, said the detained man looked like the person seen wearing a greenish hood in a surveillance camera photo the police released. “We continue to investigate at full force,” Evensson said, urging people not to go to cPeanrtliraaml eSnttockholm.
SHtoeufasne Hector of Sweden’s national police said the working hypothesis was that “this is an act oTfhterRrooyra.”l
GTamhlea SPwaeladceish brewery SpSetanndrups said one of its trucks had been hijacked a few blocks from the scene earlier in the day.
“It is one of our delivery trucks. In connection with a delivery to a restaurant called Caliente, someone jumped into the truck and drove it away while the driver was unloading his delivery,” Spendrups spokesman Marten Luth told the Swedish news agency TT.
The beer company’s truck driver was not injured, he said.
Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf cut short a visit to Brazil to return home Friday and sent the royal family’s condolences to the families of the victims.
Condolences poured into Sweden. In neighboring Finland, President Sauli Niinisto said he was shocked by the “maniac act of terror,” adding “every terror attack is to be equally condemned. But it touches us deeply when such an attack takes place in our Nordic neighborhood.”
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen called the attack a cowardly attempt “to subdue us and the peaceful way we live in Scandinavia.”
European Union Council President Donald Tusk said in a tweet that “my heart is in Stockholm this afternoon. My thoughts are with the victims and their families and friends of today’s terrible attack.”
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said “one of Europe’s most vibrant and colorful cities appears to have been struck by those wishing it — and our very way of life — harm.”
Juncker also said “an attack on any of our [EU] member states is an attack on us all” and that Sweden can count on EU help.
The truck crash appeared to be the latest attack in Europe using a vehicle.
In an attack last month claimed by the Islamic State extremist group, a man drove into a crowd on London’s Westminster Bridge, killing three people and injuring many others before stabbing a policeman to death. He was shot and killed by police. A fourth person, a woman thrown into the Thames River by the force of the car attack, died Thursday.
The Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a truck attack that killed 86 people in Nice, France, in July during a Bastille Day festival, as well as another truck attack that killed 12 people at a Christmas market in Berlin.