SOLINGEN, Germany (Reuters) – Police hunting for an unknown assailant hours after he killed three people and wounded eight in a stabbing attack at a festival in the western German city of Solingen said on Saturday they had detained an individual.
Police said in the afternoon they were investigating whether there was a possible link to the attack.
“The investigation and manhunt for possible further perpetrators and reasons for the crime are in full swing,” the police said.
The incident occurred around 9:40 p.m. GMT (4:40 p.m. CDT) Friday, when the man attacked multiple people with a knife, the police said, adding that the motive remained unclear.
“The perpetrator must be quickly caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a post on X.
Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said security authorities were doing everything they could to catch the person and investigate the background to the attack, which occurred at the Fronhof, a market square in Solingen where live bands were playing. It was during a festival marking the 650th anniversary of the city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which borders the Netherlands.
Police had cordoned off the square on Saturday, and passers-by placed candles and flowers outside the barricades.
“We are full of shock and grief,” Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach told journalists on Saturday morning.
The German musician who goes by the name Topic said he was playing on a nearby stage when the incident occurred. He was told about what happened but was asked to continue “to avoid causing a mass panic attack”, he posted on Instagram.
He was eventually told to stop, and “since the attacker was still on the run, we hid in a nearby store while police helicopters circled above us,” Topic wrote.
Authorities cancelled the remainder of the weekend festival.
The perpetrator aimed specifically for people’s throats, one police spokesperson said. A second spokesperson later wouldn’t confirm or deny that detail, and pointed to a news conference scheduled for the afternoon.
Fatal stabbings and shootings are relatively uncommon in Germany. The government said earlier this month it wanted to toughen rules on knives that can be carried in public by reducing the maximum length allowed.
In June, a 29-year-old policeman died after being stabbed in Mannheim during an attack on a right-wing demonstration. A stabbing attack on a train in 2021 injured several.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene early on Saturday. He told reporters it was a targeted attack on human life but declined to speculate on the motive.
Solingen, well known for its knife manufacturing industry, is a city of some 165,000 people.
(Additional reporting by Thilo SchmuelgenEditing by William Mallard, Sam Holmes and Frances Kerry, Kirsten Donovan)
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