Norwegian police said they had shot a knife-wielding man this morning who threatened several people in central Oslo and then attacked a patrol car that arrived at the scene.
As officers tried to arrest the attacker in the Bislett neighborhood of the capital, a policeman was injured, police said at a news conference. none of the passers-by, on the other hand, would have suffered injuries.
Excluding the hypothesis of a terrorist attack
At the moment no details have been revealed about the attacker’s motive. “We are not ruling out any reasons, but at this stage there is nothing to indicate that it is a terrorist attack,” police inspector Egil Jorgen Brekke told reporters. According to the tabloid VG, the man was Russian and 30 years old and had been sentenced to psychiatric treatment in December 2020.
The videos of the witnesses
Footage posted by witnesses on social media and broadcast by Norwegian media shows the shirtless suspect brandishing a large knife on the sidewalk outside a shop. A police car can be seen slamming the man into a building in an attempt to stop him.
The man then rushes into the vehicle, opens the front passenger door and leans into the car. “The police tried to run over him while he was trying to stab someone. Then he attacked the police with a knife… and shots were fired, ”the head of the police operation, Tore Solberg, told reporters.