BERLIN (AP) — Police in western Germany shot and killed a 37-year-old man who allegedly tried to attack them with a knife, the German news agency dpa reported Monday.
The man, whose name was not given, first used a club to attack a police car in front of a precinct in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday night, and then threatened two officers with the club and a knife, dpa reported.
As the man came toward the officers with the club and knife in his hands and did not stop despite several orders to do so, a 27-year-old police officer fatally shot him.
Several local media reported that the assailant had shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great” in Arabic during the attack, but after checking whether extremism was a possible motive for the attack, investigators said Monday that, “initial assumptions of a terrorist motive were not substantiated.”
The assailant, a divorced Turkish citizen who was known to police for previous violent acts, may have suffered from a mental illness, prosecutors in Essen and police in Muenster, who were in charge of the case, said in a written statement.
On Friday, a knife attack in Paris left one man dead and two women injured. French prosecutors said the incident is being treated as terror-related after investigations revealed that the assailant, who was shot dead by police, had been radicalized and had prepared the attack.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.