At a press conference early on Monday morning, Copenhagen Head of Police Soren Thomassen said the victims include “a man in his 40s and two young people.”
A young Danish man has been arrested in “undramatic fashion” in connection with the shooting, according to Thomassen, and is currently the only suspect.
“We are convinced that the 22-year-old suspect arrested was the shooter, he was carrying a rifle and ammunition,” he said, adding that investigators “believe the suspect was not working with others, but that until they are absolutely certain they will not rule it out.”
Eyewitness Joachim Olsen, a former Danish politician and athlete, told CNN that he was on his way to a gym inside Field’s when he saw large groups of people exiting the mall.
“It looked like something, I’m sorry to say, like something you would see from a school shooting in the US, people coming out with their hands above their heads,” Olsen said.
“You have people running out, looking for friends and calling friends and family members who were inside, some speaking to friends who were inside,” he said. “Old people with their arms around the necks of people carrying them out, their feet just being dragged across the floor.”
Outside the mall, Olsen spoke to a man who spoke to an off-duty paramedic whose arms “were covered in blood up to his elbows.”
“He wanted to go back in but the police wouldn’t let him,” Olsen said.
According to Olsen, security tried to get the crowds to move away from the mall.
“At one point we were rushed away. The police came and said ‘Run, run, run, they’re still shooting in there.'”
A spokesman for Rigshospitalet, Denmark’s largest hospital, told CNN that the hospital had taken in several victims from the incident, and had called in extra staff to deal with the emergency.
“We have all been brutally ripped from the bright summer that had just begun. It is incomprehensible. Heartbreaking. Meaningless. Our beautiful and usually so safe capital was changed in a split second,” Frederiksen said.
In a statement, Denmark’s Royal House said, “Our thoughts and deepest sympathy are with the victims, their relatives and all those affected by the tragedy.”
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, also expressed solidarity with the people of Denmark.
This is developing story and will be updated.
Journalist Susanne Gargiulo reported from Copenhagen.