Police are chasing the knife attacker from Duisburg: This is known about the perpetrator

After the knife attack in a Duisburg gym with four serious injuries, the perpetrator is still on the run. What is known about the attack so far.

In Duisburg, a man attacked people with a stabbing weapon in a downtown gym on Tuesday. The police search continued on Wednesday afternoon. What is currently known:

Around 5:40 p.m., emergency calls were received by the Duisburg police. A man stabbed people at the “John Reed” gym, according to police. Three people are life-threatening and one person is seriously injured. A “stabbing or cutting weapon” was used – possibly a machete, reports the “Spiegel”.

The police are apparently assuming a targeted attack. “We are currently not assuming that this is an amok act,” said North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) on Wednesday. “I now hope that the victims will recover quickly and that everyone who was there and saw this terrible act will recover,” continued Reul. According to information from “Bild”, the incident happened in the dressing room of the studio, which is located opposite the town hall. There was initially no information about the motives.

After the attack, the police published a description of the alleged perpetrator and activated an information portal on the Internet. According to the description, the attacker from Tuesday evening is about 30 years old, 1.80 meters tall and of normal stature.

He had a long black beard, was dressed in dark clothes and wore a black cap with the peak turned forward.

The victims of the attack were men between the ages of 21 and 32. This was announced by the Duisburg police.

The injured were taken to a hospital on Tuesday. According to the police, they are German citizens. After the attack, one of the four victims, a 21-year-old man, is still in acute danger of death. The man had already been operated once, and a second operation is currently in the room, said investigating prosecutor Jill McCuller. Investigators said his condition was very bad.

The other three seriously injured, aged 24, 24 and 32, underwent emergency surgery, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office told the German Press Agency on Wednesday. They are still only able to be heard to a very limited extent.

“The search measures are in full swing,” said a spokeswoman for the responsible Essen police. Investigators said no arrests have been made yet.

Witnesses who had been training on site at the time of the crime were questioned on Tuesday evening. According to a dpa reporter, heavily armed special police forces were on site. Eyewitnesses were questioned by the police in a nearby restaurant, he reported. One still had his sports bag with him.

The State Criminal Police Office set up a contact point for witnesses in the adjacent pedestrian zone. A police helicopter was also in use, police officers were looking for traces on all floors of the affected studio.

There are no surveillance cameras in the gym. It is therefore difficult to reconstruct the exact processes. In any case, the investigators assumed that one or more of the later victims had an argument with the perpetrator, the prosecutor said on Wednesday. What it was about and how the conflict went on will be further investigated.

Part of the investigation is also whether the perpetrator himself was a member of the studio, so should be known by name, said the prosecutor.

“We very much regret the incident in our club in Duisburg and hope that the victims will recover quickly,” said John Reed Fitness in an email at the request of the German Press Agency. They support the police investigations in all possible places. “The safety and health of our members and our employees are our top priority. Our goal is for them to feel safe and in good hands in our studios.” The operator did not provide any further information about the incident.