Five people were injured Thursday in an ax attack at the central train station in the west German city of Dusseldorf.
Authorities said a suspect was in custody, correcting earlier reports of two arrests. Dusseldorf police spokeswoman Anja Kynast told The Associated Press that the arrested man was also injured in the attack, which happened shortly before 9 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET).
German media reports indicated that none of the injuries were life-threatening.
Mindestens ein Verletzter – Axt-Angriff am Düsseldorfer Hauptbahnhof https://t.co/24e6jwHVmJ pic.twitter.com/CzwsFHlVRo
— BILD (@BILD) March 9, 2017
A spokesman for German federal police, who are usually in charge of protecting police stations, told the AFP news agency that other suspects may be at large, but it was not clear how many people were being sought. Kynast said officers were searching the station and its surroundings, but they did not have concrete information about further attackers at this stage
Der Spiegel newspaper reported that the suspect fled the scene and was arrested after jumping from a nearby bridge.
A motive for the attack was not immediately known.
“We are not using the words ‘rampage’ or ‘terror,'” the federal police spokesman said.
“We were standing on the track, waiting for the train,” a station attendant told the German newspaper Bild. “The train came, and suddenly someone jumped out with an ax [and] hit the people. There was blood everywhere. I have experienced a lot, but I have never experienced [anything like] it.”
Heavily-armed special police forces swooped in on the station, located in the center of Germany’s ninth-largest city. Trains scheduled to arrive or depart from the station were canceled or diverted.
Ax attacks are not unheard of in Germany. Last July, a 17-year-old Afghan refugee injured five people on a regional train in the central town of Wurzburg before he was killed by police. The refugee later claimed in a video to be acting on behalf of ISIS.
