Three people were killed and five were injured, including two very seriously, during a knife attack on Friday June 25 in Würzburg (Bavaria). Quickly arrested by the police, the suspect of the assault is a 24-year-old Somali who arrived in Germany in 2015, known to the police, living in a homeless hostel and recently “Forced into a psychiatric hospital” due to violent behavior, announced the regional Minister of the Interior, Joachim Herrmann, member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), who went there in the early evening. “The investigation will have to determine whether we are dealing with an act linked to Islamism or to the psychic state of the aggressor”, he added, mentioning the fact that a witness heard him shout ” Allahu Akbar ! ” (” God is big ! “).
It was around 5 pm that the police were alerted that a man had just attacked several people in a department store near the Place Barbarossa, in the very center of this city of 130,000 inhabitants, located between Frankfurt and Nuremberg. At 6:35 p.m., she announced on her Twitter account that the individual had been arrested, that he had obviously acted alone and that the population was now out of danger. Half an hour later, she posted a second tweet: “Out of respect for the victims, please do not share photos or videos. “
On the whole, the local and national media stuck to this line. With one exception: the conservative tabloid Bild, who quickly posted on his site several images taken by witnesses on cell phones showing the attacker on the run. In one of the photos, he is seen walking barefoot and holding a knife in his hand. On videos, about twenty passers-by – some with sticks, others with coffee chairs – run after him before being joined by a police car. In the evening, the police indicated that they had used their firearms to apprehend the suspect, but that his life was not in danger.
As is usually the case in Germany after this type of event, the main politicians did not rush to react. Starting with the Chancellor, Angela Merkel who, Friday evening, had still not spoken. As for the three main candidates who will run for succession in the legislative elections of September 26, the conservative Armin Laschet, the social democrat Olaf Scholz and the environmentalist Annalena Baerbock, it is only around 9 p.m., after the intervention of the Bavarian minister from the inside, that they intervened.
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