BREAKING NEWS with Copenhagen synagogue shooting – 2 cops shot, 3rd shot in head

One person shot in head and two police officers wounded in Copenhagen synagogue attack.
Manhunt in progress as shooter flees on foot;  follows earlier shooting attack in Danish capital at debate attended by Mohammed cartoonist.

By Ynet & Reuters

 

COPENHAGEN – One person was shot in the head and two police were wounded when shots were fired at a synagogue in central Copenhagen a little after midnight Saturday, Danish police said, adding that it was too early to say whether the incident was connected to an earlier one at an arts cafe.

Copenhagen Synagogue – Photo courtesy Google maps

One policeman was shot in the arm and the other in the leg, local media reported. Police initially declined to describe the precise condition of the person shot in the head or the police officers.

A massive manhunt was underway, Danish media reported, after the gunman fled the scene on foot. According to reports, police were searching the city’s botanical garden, in the heart of Copenhagen.

The attack followed a shooting earlier Saturday on a cafe which hosted a debate on freedom of speech and was attended by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been threatened with death for his cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. One man died in that attack, and police said a suspect was still at large.

Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said Denmark was on high alert after a “terrorist attack” police said was aimed at Vilks, who stirred controversy in 2007 with published drawings depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog.

The cafe complex was hosting a cultural event called “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression”. French ambassador to Denmark Francois Zimeray, who was attending the event, likened the shooting to the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris by Islamist militants that killed 12 people last month. That attack was followed by a shooting at a Jewish site in the city, in which four people were killed.

“We feel certain now that it was a politically motivated attack, and thereby it was a terrorist attack,” Thorning-Schmidt told journalists close to the site of the attack Saturday.

European Council President Donald Tusk called the attack “another brutal terrorist attack targeted at our fundamental values and freedoms, including the freedom of expression.”

 

View original Ynet publication at: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4626584,00.html