On Saturday night, police made an arrest within the case however wouldn’t say whether or not they believed the individual was the attacker.
“One man has been arrested and we at the moment are figuring out how he’s linked to the assault,” a spokesperson for Düsseldorf police stated Saturday night.
At a information convention Saturday afternoon, authorities stated that they had not dominated out a terrorist assault as a result of no different rationalization for the seemingly random violence made sense.
Police stated that they had detained a 15-year-old boy for questioning whom they believed may need had prior information of the assault. The state legal professional shouldn’t be treating the youth as a suspect.
What occurred?
Shortly after 9:30 p.m., the attacker began stabbing individuals who had gathered on the pageant to rejoice Solingen’s 650th anniversary. The assault occurred throughout a dwell music efficiency, not removed from a short lived stage arrange for the occasion, which was billed as a “Pageant of Range.”
Police stated it appeared that the attacker had chosen victims from the group at random and that he appeared to have focused not less than one of many victims’ necks.
The pageant, initially deliberate to run by means of Sunday, was instantly canceled as emergency employees tended to the injured and police tried to get a deal with on the state of affairs.
On Saturday, police stated a girl and a person, each 57, and one other man, 67, had been killed. They didn’t give additional particulars. Eight had been injured. Of these, 4 remained in vital situation.
Police have interviewed witnesses and survivors to attempt to reconstruct the assault and have requested the general public to add any movies or images of the occasion to the official tip web site of the state police.
Early Saturday, police raided the home of the 15-year-old boy, whom a number of witnesses stated that they had overheard speaking with the suspect earlier than the assault. The general public prosecutor stated the boy was being investigated for not reporting a criminal offense.
Then Saturday night, the German equal of a SWAT unit arrested a suspect in a short lived dwelling for refugees within the neighborhood of the assault. Police had been attempting to substantiate whether or not the individual was the attacker.
What’s subsequent?
“Our authorities are doing every little thing they’ll to catch the perpetrator and to find out the background of the assault,” Nancy Faeser, Germany‘s inside minister, stated in a press release Saturday. Officers from neighboring areas have been introduced in to attempt to assist native police discover the attacker.
Federal police have additionally been concerned within the search, authorities stated Saturday. The federal prosecutor’s workplace, which might take over the case if it was formally deemed act of terrorism, is on standby, with two members of its employees already in Düsseldorf observing the case.
Police have thus far declined to make public any particulars concerning the man, saying there have been too many conflicting descriptions from witnesses. “Nothing can be extra damaging than to place out an outline, name on the general public to assist with the search after which, in the middle of the investigation, uncover that the individual in query appears fully totally different in spite of everything,” Marcel Fiebig, a spokesperson for the Düsseldorf police, stated throughout Saturday’s information convention.
That has not stopped the tabloid Bild from releasing an outline of the person as a “Mediterranean kind,” sporting a darkish beard. Members of Germany’s far-right AfD celebration, which has made violent crimes dedicated by younger male immigrants one among its most important speaking factors, reacted swiftly.
Earlier than police had confirmed any of the descriptions, Tino Chrupalla, a pacesetter of the far-right AfD, wrote in a publish on the social community X: “A ban on knives is not going to assist to forestall such conditions. Germany wants a right away change in its migration and safety coverage!”
The anti-immigrant celebration is poised to make features in three state elections subsequent month.
Two close by cities have additionally canceled public festivals that that they had deliberate for the weekend. “We can’t rejoice when our neighboring metropolis is mourning only a few kilometers away,” stated Bettina Warnecke, the mayor of Haan, which canceled its wine pageant. In feedback reported by the DPA, a German information service, Warnecke famous that safety was additionally a difficulty, on condition that police had not discovered the person they believed to be the attacker.
“The perpetrator should be caught shortly and punished with the complete power of the legislation,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated in a press release posted to his X account Saturday.
What are some key information about Solingen?
Solingen, dwelling to greater than 150,000 folks, is simply east of Düsseldorf, the capital of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Recognized all over the world for the manufacturing of high-end knives and scissors, Solingen calls itself the “metropolis of blades.” The assault occurred within the busy sq. on the coronary heart of the pageant celebrating the 650th anniversary of the primary written point out of town.
Solingen is a various metropolis that has benefited from international employees for the reason that guest-worker packages of the Sixties introduced international employees to town’s many blade producers. Greater than 20% of town’s residents should not German residents, and hundreds extra maintain twin citizenship.
Town was the positioning of one of the traumatizing racist assaults in postwar Germany, in 1993, when a gaggle of younger neo-Nazis set fireplace to a home inhabited by a Turkish household. 5 folks had been killed, together with three youngsters, and 17 folks had been injured.
