Copenhagen, July 4 (IANS) Three people were killed and several others injured, three of them critically, during a shooting at a Copenhagen shopping mall, one of the biggest in Denmark, police confirmed on Monday.
"A man in his 40s and two teenagers were killed" in the shooting at Field's Shopping Center located in the Amager district, Copenhagen Chief Police Inspector Soren Thomassen said at a press conference on Monday.
At around 5.35 p.m. on Sunday evening, police received a call regarding the incident, according to Thomassen.
At 5.48 p.m., a 22-year-old Danish man in possession of a rifle and ammunition was arrested outside the shopping mall, he said.
The motive for the shooting remains unknown and the suspect will face questioning by a judge on Monday.
Thomassen said the police cannot rule out the possibility of a terror attack so far.
On Sunday night, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Denmark had suffered a cruel attack.
"Denmark was hit by a cruel attack on Sunday night... Several were killed. Even more wounded. Innocent families shopping or eating out. Children, adolescents and adults.
"Our beautiful and usually so safe capital was changed in a split second," the BBC quoted the Prime Minister as saying.
Denmark's royal family said their "deepest sympathy" was with "the victims, their relatives and all those who are affected by the tragedy".
"We do not yet know the full extent of the tragedy, but it is already clear that more people have lost their lives and that even more have been injured," said the joint statement by Queen Margrethe, Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary.
The Field's opened in 2004 and is the second largest shopping mall in Denmark.
It has more than 140 shops and restaurants.
The last time Denmark witnessed a major terror incident was in 2015, when two people were killed and six police officers were injured during an attack on a cultural centre and a synagogue in Copenhagen.
The gunman was later killed in a shootout with police.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last week warned the Delta variant of the virus is so contagious, vaccinated people who do get infected could be just as big a risk to others as people who aren't vaccinated.
The new requirement, which will be phased in over several weeks in August and September, is the most aggressive step the city has taken yet to curb a surge in cases caused by the delta variant.
The findings have the potential to upend past thinking about how the disease is spread. Previously, vaccinated people who got infected were thought to have low levels of virus and to be unlikely to pass it to others. But the new data shows that is not the case with the delta variant.
President Joe Biden is calling on states and local governments to join those that are already handing out dollars for shots. New York, the nation's biggest city, started doling out $100 awards on Friday.
The internal documents also cite studies from Canada, Singapore and Scotland showing that the delta variant may pose a greater risk for hospitalization, intensive care treatment and death than the alpha variant, first detected in the United Kingdom.
