I'm going to move it on uh from that because uh this is another uh breaking story and it's a very serious one very serious one indeed uh several individuals have been killed on Friday night tonight when a man stabbed passes by at random with a knife at a city festival in the western German city of singan that's according to German newspaper build Bill reported that the event occurred at around 9:45 p.m. local time Witnesses said that the perpetrator is still at large apparently and local police said they were not able to comment on that yet
this is clearly a very very concerning incident and there's um quite a lot of footage coming out about it which would appear to indicate that this is very serious indeed joining us now is our home and security editor Mark why mark thank you very much what do we know well we know that multiple people have been stabbed there are reports of at least three people who have died that has not been confirmed by the German authorities but is been widely report reported now in the German press uh a number of other people stabbed and injured
and being attended to by paramedics at the scene now this was in Zing germ uh which is a western city in Germany it's a reasonably small City but it's near the larger cities of dorf and cologne um it was a festival we're told that was celebrating the 650th anniversary of this city and also celebrating diversity uh in the city when according again to reports uh a man a single male no reports of multiple attackers uh but a man started randomly stabbing people in a Central Square in Zing ham uh that man has now disappeared there
is an active manh hunt for this individual police helicopters very significant policing resources that have been brought in to the central area of zing and the authorities are telling people to stay at home not to venture out uh because of course this armed suspect believed to still be armed with a knife uh is out there they don't know any more than that at this stage but of course as always with these incidents Patrick attention turns to the potential uh for this being a terrorist attack it was certainly uh a random attack or an attack uh
in a crowded place targeting multiple people it absolutely fits the profile of what we've seen before in these targeted attacks where individuals have tried to kill and injure as many people as possible in crowded places no indeed and as far as we're aware at the moment it appears that they have not managed to apprehend the individual involved Mark is that right no and that's the worrying aspect about this normally of course you will find that uh uh attackers can often stay around I mean depending on the um the the ideology that's involved in an attack
quite often they want to be martyred uh some do disappear and that makes it much more difficult for the uh police the investigative services to get a handle on exactly what's happened and what the danger to other people is because as long as this person is at large then clearly he poses a danger so while that is the case people are being as I said urged just to stay indoors lock their doors uh and not venture out onto the streets of this city lots of police resources now in a man hunt looking for this individual
in tandem of course with the paramedics the Emergency Services who are dealing with multiple casualties some of them were told very seriously injured yeah indeed so a massive search operation underway and Mark unfortunately incidents like these appear to be coming more and more common don't they we have to report on this stuff all too often now around Mainland Europe and and here in Britain obviously we don't know the motive about this yet we are have got uh little to no description of an individual who may be responsible to this and I certainly don't want to
jump to conclusions but these kind of Mass marauding knife attacks are now a regular thing unfortunately aren't they yes I mean quite frankly the motivation you know is one thing what you have got is a mass stabbing attack as you've said um just as we saw in Southport uh there of course there were these misleading reports on social media that pointed to this being an islamist attack it wasn't on that CA uh occasion but it was a an absolutely horrific incident Target getting multiple people and at the very least this is an absolutely horrific incident
targeting multiple people it will uh in the fullness of time uh become apparent what the motivation of this individual was but I can tell you that right across Europe Security Services have been on heightened alert uh in recent months for the potential of islamist attacks uh they were particularly concerned around the Olympics in Paris that thankfully passed off without major incident you've got the paramedics of the par Olympics coming up in Paris as well so some added concern about that but Germany has seen a number of islamist related attacks uh over the last year that
have uh targeted politicians and other people in crowded places there that have been islamist inspired so um there is real concern and as I say we don't know who the individual was what his MO motivation was but of course uh the police and security services will be uh working as hard as they can to try to identify what a potential motive was yeah and what do we know about about the German police MK I mean they are they always armed are they seem to be very very quick at responding to this I mean the incident
is believed to have happened at around 9:45 p.m. local time as they understand it they were there almost immediately there were unfortunately at least three fatalities uh that's being reported it's believed that potentially is as many as nine people have been quite seriously injured in this we're seeing footage here of of police helicopters in the air we're seeing a huge police response down there um it was at this Festival of diversity as you said so perhaps there was already a police and emergency service uh presence there as you would expect at any kind of large
Gathering but um what how did the German police normally normally approach this kind of stuff well they are unarmed Police Service Patrick but the they are not they they don't carry sort of automatic weapons uh as a rule the the the bead officers so what you have is police officers with sidearms with handguns um and they will call in just like they do in the UK specialist resources if you're dealing with a a marauding attack uh with one or more attackers uh on the loose and potentially uh causing a real risk to the public then
those specialists units come in uh so armed officers uh who are trained to a higher level and who carry long barreled weapons uh and all manner of other uh paraphernalia that they need to be able to deal with the likes of a hostage situation or just a you know an armed individual whatever they might be armed with so yes they're an armed service um and you're right they would have been on the scene pretty quickly the fact this Festival was underway it will have at a level of policing and paramedic Resource as any sort of
large Gathering of people does in case something un to happens so they will have been there reasonably quickly uh but this person you know it happened quickly uh this person then disappeared it seems just as quickly and as yet uh that very worrying news from the German authorities is that he is still on the loose you know indeed and of course these kind of things are very very difficult to actually stop Mark aren't they because if it is as as all indication would appear to be at the moment some kind of Lone Wolf marauding knife
attack unless you happen to have prior Intelligence on an individual or they are under surveillance at the time it's very difficult to stop that kind of thing but it just adds again doesn't it to this sense of unrest we had the the Taylor Swift uh issue in in Vienna recently where there was you know she had to cancel some shows didn't she which led to an increased police presence here that sense really that now just attending a mass Gathering poses some kind of problem but yes very difficult to stop and intervene in this kind of
thing isn't it it's one of the the biggest concerns for the security services at the moment is this uh sort of um Divergence from these plots that used to take place with multiple individuals planning quite sophisticated terrorist attacks now uh moving towards and it really happened with Islamic State um in Earnest when the is group emerged in Iraq and Syria uh they as opposed to Al-Qaeda which tried to go for more spectacular attacks told their followers just to uh get behind the wheel of a car just pick up a brick or a knife or anything
and go out and kill in the name of whatever perverted uh religion they happen to be um following so that that is um a big concern for the security servic because if you've only got one individual uh who is not colluding with others as such is maybe just being fed from the internet and whatever hateful ideology is pouring out on the internet then the the police and the security services don't really know uh what that individual might be consuming and how they're being influenced and then it's as simple as just heading to the kitchen drawer
and taking out uh a deadly knife or getting behind the wheel of a vehicle so it's very difficult to get any kind of um you know any ahead of any attack like this and until it's too late until it's actually happened Patrick look mark thank you very very much for keeping us up to date on that and giving us a lot more information as well your expertise is much appreciated certainly when we've got times like this that's Mark White there is's our home and security editor
