COPENHAGEN — A gunman raked a Copenhagen cultural center with dozens of bullets Saturday during a debate over free speech, killing a 40-year-old man and injuring three police officers in an attack that survivors said appeared to have been an attempt to mimic last month’s massacre at a satirical newspaper in Paris.
After searching for the gunman for hours, police reported another shooting near a synagogue in downtown Copenhagen after midnight Sunday. One person was killed by a shot in the head, and two police officers were shot in the arms and legs, police said, adding it wasn’t clear whether the two incidents were linked.
The gunman in both incidents fled. Police warned people to be vigilant and follow the instructions of officers flooding the city center.
The French ambassador to Denmark and a cartoonist — previously targeted for depicting the prophet Muhammad — were among those taking part in the debate who survived the torrent of gunfire.
“It was the same intention as Charlie Hebdo except they didn’t manage to get in,” the French ambassador, François Zimeray, told Agence France-Presse, referring to last month’s attack in Paris. “Intuitively, I would say there were at least 50 gunshots, and the police here are saying 200. Bullets went through the doors, and everyone threw themselves to the floor.”
A gunman who fled the scene in a getaway car was described as a man in his late 20s carrying an assault rifle. A photo released by Danish authorities shows him wearing a dark blue ski jacket with a red woolen cap and a matching scarf covering the lower portion of his face.
Political leaders from across Europe condemned the attack, with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls tweeting, “Freedom attacked in #Copenhagen. Solidarity with the Danes.”
The attacks were likely to add to deep apprehensions over terrorism that are being felt across Europe as the continent contends with rising radicalism and a flood of homegrown fighters traveling to and from the battlefields of the Middle East.
Security services have said they are overwhelmed by the scale of the threat, with a growing number of suspects to surveil and potential targets to protect on a continent unaccustomed to regular bursts of extremist violence in its biggest cities.
The first target Saturday was a north Copenhagen cultural center, the Krudttønden, that is well-known for its jazz performances. On Saturday afternoon it was hosting a community discussion titled “Art, Blasphemy and the Freedom of Expression.”
Among the organizers was Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who has received death threats since he drew the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog in 2007. An al-Qaeda faction placed a bounty on his head, and an American woman calling herself Jihad Jane was sentenced in 2014 to 10 years in prison for plotting to kill Vilks.
In recent years, Vilks, 68, has had constant police protection.
Vilks had security guards with him at the discussion Saturday and was unharmed in the attack. The French ambassador also was unhurt by the fusillade of bullets, which left dozens of jagged holes in the plate-glass windows.
Police did not immediately release the identity of the dead man, who was said to be a civilian.
Last month’s Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo, in which editors and cartoonists were among 12 people killed, was thought to have been motivated by the magazine’s depictions of Muhammad. Twenty people were killed over three days of violence in Paris, including three assailants, all of whom grew up in France.
Police said the assailant in the Copenhagen attack spoke Danish. He unleashed his gunfire in the middle of the afternoon, with dozens of people gathered to hear Vilks, Zimeray and others discuss the limits of free expression in the age of terrorism.
Inna Shevchenko, an activist with the feminist group Femen, said she was in the middle of a speech, telling the audience that “often it is an illusion that we have freedom of speech in Europe,” according to tweets she later sent from a police station.
“Then we heard shots,” she said.
In audio of the moment the gunman struck that was posted online by the BBC, a woman can be heard speaking before she’s interrupted by a volley of fire.
The shots are steady and sustained. From inside the center, the sounds are of chairs sliding along the floor as people dive for cover. No one screams.
Survivors of the attack said that police who had been standing guard outside the center returned fire. The three injured officers were apparently among those who had been standing guard.
The attack at Charlie Hebdo has ignited debate across Europe over the right of free expression and whether speech that insults a religion or group should be protected. The latest iteration of the debate has roots in Denmark, where in 2005 the newspaper Jyllands-Posten set off a global furor after publishing cartoons of Muhammad, an act that many Muslims consider blasphemous.
Vilks has been an outspoken advocate for free expression. The Lars Vilks Committee, established to support him, gave its 2014 prize to Charlie Hebdo, just three months before the magazine’s staff was massacred.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
