Guard killed, two injured in attack on Copenhagen synagogue
A man was killed and two injured in an attack at a synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The shooting, after midnight on Sunday morning at Copenhagen’s central synagogue in Krystalgade, occurred just hours after a fatal shooting on Saturday afternoon at a free speech event at a cultural centre featuring a Danish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, who is under police protection because of his cartoons caricaturing Mohammed. It is not yet clear if the two shootings are related.
Early on Sunday morning police shot and killed the man believed to be the gunman in the two attacks during a shootout in the Noerrebro district of Copenhagen.
Two policemen and a volunteer civilian guard were shot in the synagogue attack, as they guarded outside of the building in which a bar mitzvah party was taking place. The civilian guard, a man in his 30s who has not yet been named, was shot in the head and later died of his injuries.
Police reportedly had been called to guard the synagogue following the attack earlier in the day on the cultural centre. The two policemen were injured with gunshots to their legs and arms.
“I dare not think about what would have happened if (the killer) had access to the congregation,” the chairman of the Jewish community in Denmark, Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, told broadcaster TV2 News.
A civilian was killed and three policemen were wounded in the earlier attack at the cultural centre. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Danish prime minister, said the attack on the cafe was a terrorist attack. Copenhagen went on high alert following the shooting.
JTA
Flowers and armed police outside the synagogue in Copenhagen. Photo: Ian Woods/Twitter
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