Norway to review police handling of archery attack | Politics
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HELSINKI (AP) – Norwegian authorities are opening an independent investigation into the actions of police and security agencies following an archery attack that left five dead and three injured in the town of Kongsberg this week.
Norway’s domestic intelligence agency, known by the acronym PST, said on Saturday it had decided to request the review after consulting with commanders of the country’s national and regional police. A 37-year-old Kongsberg resident who police say admitted to the Wednesday night murders is undergoing a psychiatric assessment.
“Given the seriousness of the matter, it is very important that learning points and possible weaknesses and errors are identified early so that action can be taken immediately,” PST said in a statement.
Norwegian media asked how long it took officers to apprehend suspect Espen Andersen Braathen after the regional police department received reports of a man shooting arrows in a supermarket. According to a police timeline, the first information was recorded at 6:13 p.m. and Andersen Braathen was arrested at 6:47 p.m.
Police officials said the first police at the scene observed a suspect but went into hiding and called for reinforcements when arrows were fired at them. Officials admitted that the armed suspect had fled and likely killed the five victims aged 50 to 70 outside and inside some apartments at the time.
Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl, who took office Thursday with the rest of Norway‘s new center-left government, did not comment on the police handling of the threat.
“Now it is important that the police get a full investigation and investigation into the case,” she told Swedish public broadcaster SVT on Saturday.
Authorities said on Saturday that those injured, including a policeman who was beaten while off duty inside the supermarket, were all released from the hospital.
Senior police officer Per Thomas Omholt told a press conference on Friday that three weapons, including bow and arrows, were used in the attack, but declined to identify the types or to reveal how the five victims were killed, saying investigators need to interview more witnesses and not want their accounts to be influenced by what they read in the news.
Omholt said on Friday, investigators continued to explore possible motives or reasons for the attack, but their “strongest hypothesis for the motive is illness.” His “health has deteriorated,” the officer said, declining to give details.
Norwegian TV station NRK reported on Friday that the domestic intelligence agency PST received information about Andersen Braathen in 2015 and that agents questioned him in 2017 to determine if he posed a threat. The following year, the agency contacted Norwegian health authorities about him and concluded that he suffered from severe mental illness, NRK said.
Norwegian newspaper VG reported that the agency also believed Andersen Braathen could carry out a “small-scale attack with simple means in Norway”. PST has not commented on the report.
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