Kongsberg: Five dead in Norway bow and arrow attack

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Kongsberg: Five dead in Norway bow and arrow attack.

Four women and a man were killed and two others wounded when a man used a bow and arrow to attack them in Norway.

Police first received word of an attack in the town of Kongsberg, south-west of the capital Oslo, at 18:12 local time (16:12 GMT).

A Danish man aged 37 has been arrested and questioned for hours overnight.

Police said they had previously been in contact with him over fears of radicalisation after he converted to Islam.

The victims were all aged between 50 and 70, regional police chief Ole Bredrup Saeverud told reporters on Thursday morning.

He said they were most likely killed after the police first confronted the attacker at 18:18.

Reports of the incident were "horrifying", said Prime Minister Erna Solberg, hours before she was due to leave office.

"I understand that many people are afraid, but it's important to emphasise that the police are now in control," she said.

The attacker is said to have launched the assault inside a Coop Extra supermarket on Kongsberg's west side. One of those injured was an off-duty police officer who was in the shop at the time.

A spokesperson for the chain later confirmed a "serious incident" at their store, adding that none of their staff were physically injured.

Local police chief Oyvind Aas confirmed that the attacker had managed to escape an initial confrontation with police before an arrest was finally made at 18:47 local time, 35 minutes after the attack began.

One witness told local outlet TV2 she had heard a commotion and seen a woman taking cover, then a "man standing on the corner with arrows in a quiver on his shoulder and a bow in his hand".

"Afterwards, I saw people running for their lives. One of them was a woman holding a child by the hand," she added.

Police have told Norwegian news agency NTB that the attacker also used other weapons during the incident, without giving more details on what they were.

The suspect moved over a large area, and authorities cordoned off several parts of the town. Residents were ordered to stay indoors so authorities could examine the scene and gather evidence. Surrounding gardens and garages were searched with the help of sniffer dogs.

The attack was Norway's deadliest since far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people, most of them at a children's Labour Party summer camp on the island of Utoya in July 2011.

Kongsberg Mayor Kari Anne Sand said it was a shocking attack that had taken place in an area where many people lived, and that a crisis team would help anyone affected.

Describing the town as "a completely ordinary community with completely ordinary people", Ms Sand said everyone had been deeply shaken by "this very tragic situation."

The suspect was taken to a police station in the town of Drammen, where his defence lawyer, Fredrik Neumann, said he was questioned for more than three hours and was co-operating with authorities.

The suspect had a Danish mother and Norwegian father, he explained.

Norway's outgoing justice minister Monica Maeland told reporters the police did not yet know whether or not it was act of terrorism and could not comment on details emerging about the suspect.

Police prosecutor Ann Irén Svane Mathiassen told TV2 that the man had lived in Kongsberg for several years and was known to police.

The attack came on the final day of Erna Solberg's conservative government, and a new justice minister takes over the case on Thursday under a centre-left coalition led by Labour leader Jonas Gahr Store.

Mr Store said it was a "gruesome and brutal act", hours before announcing his new cabinet.

Norwegian police are not usually armed and after the attack the police directorate ordered all officers nationwide to carry firearms as an extra precaution.

Police were searching the Huseby area of north-western Oslo on Thursday following reports of a man being seen carrying a bow and arrow. Police stressed no-one had been hurt and there was no threat.

"The police have no indication so far that there is a change in the national threat level," the directorate said in a statement (in Norwegian).

[Zaune]

Well, at least this one didn't manage to get hold of a rifle.

[The Infidel]

Unbelievable little piece of shit! His name is Espen Andersen Bråthen and he's been living in Norway all his life. These things are extremely rare in Norway. I think the last time was in 2011. There's been some talks about him being an Islam convertite, but it seems religion had very little to do with this. This person have a history of mental problems and threatening other people. He was on the police's watch list, but that list is quite big and most people on it doesn't end up doing anything at all, so it can be difficult to figure out who will actually do shit and who will only talk.

I don't know anything about any motives yet.

[Broomstick]

Well, at least this one didn't manage to get hold of a rifle.

Meh. Modern bows can be as powerful as rifles even if they take longer to re-load.

In my state of Indiana crossbows are under much the same restrictions as firearms, except there's no such thing as a concealed carry permit for them. Also, you're not allowed to hunt with crossbows (unless you only have the use of one arm) although there are multiple types of firearms you can use for hunting. You can use hunting bows, but they, too, are considered deadly weapons. The shooting ranges I'm familiar with that offer space for archery have the same rules regarding them as firearms.

Bows and arrows are old fashioned and ancient tech, but they still work very effectively. Being a lot more quiet than firearms, they don't alert bystanders to a weapon being used the way guns do. I handle bows the same way I handle guns.

The only "advantage" here is that, as I said, bows take longer to reload. That makes it harder to rack up double-digits of victims. Which is cold comfort.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I was attempting to look up more information on what kind of bow he used when it turned out that instead of being shot all of the fatalities were stabbed:

Five people killed in Norway last week were all stabbed to death and not shot with arrows as initially suspected, police have announced.

Four women and one man, aged between 52 and 78, were killed on Wednesday in the attack in Kongsberg, a town about 45 miles (70km) west of the capital, Oslo.

The attacker was armed with a bow and arrow, which he shot at several people, wounding at least one, but on Monday the police inspector Per Thomas Omholt told reporters none of the deaths was caused by the weapon.

“Five people were killed with stabbing weapons,” Omholt told a news conference on Monday. He declined to say whether these were knives or larger weapons.

“Some were killed inside their own homes, others out in public,” Omholt said.

Three other people were injured, including an off-duty police officer who was shot with the bow and arrow in the early phase of the 35-minute rampage.

According to the police, a “double-digit” number of people were shot at with arrows at the start of the attack. “At some point he discarded or lost his bow and arrows,” said Omholt.

Police said they were still interviewing witnesses. “Everything points to the victims being selected at random,” Omholt said.

Police had said initially that a man armed with a bow and arrow had committed the killings. They later added that other weapons were also involved. Omholt did not say why it had taken six days to clarify the situation.

The sole suspect in the case, named by police last week as Espen Andersen Bråthen, 37, is believed by investigators to be mentally ill and is being held in a secure psychiatric facility.

The death toll was the worst of any attack in Norway since 2011, when the far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, most of them teenagers at a youth camp.

He'll probably end up in the same prison as that Nazi.

[Ralin]

Isn't being shot by an arrow basically just being stabbed from a distance?

[Broomstick]

From the standpoint of "penetrated by a foreign object" I guess so.

[Bedlam]

By the same argument being shot by a gun could be being stabbed from a distance.

[Broomstick]

True.

A bit ridiculous.

I think there's more of a difference in my mind between, to use gamer terms, a "ranged" weapon that can harm at a distance vs a "melee" weapon that requires you to be more or less within arms length of your target.

[The Infidel]

According to the police, he also used two "stabbing objects bought on the Internet", probably knives, to kill and harm people. Several of the victims were killed in their own homes, but the police keep the details to themselves. They say it all seems well planned.

We had another incident a while ago. A right wing fucker who first killed his step sister from China, then went to a mosque with a shotgun to kill as many as he could, but the mosque was almost empty and one guy there charged him and incapacitated him before he could do more harm.

Mass killings... We really don't need this part of the American "culture"...

[Zaune]

By the same argument being shot by a gun could be being stabbed from a distance.

Not exactly. If I understand the material science of it correctly (and it's entirely possible I don't), an arrow or crossbow bolt is more likely to be stopped by a stab vest. Blade-resistance and bullet-resistance use different weaves of Kevlar and dual-purpose vests are more expensive, so in countries where it's harder to get hold of a gun security guards and first responders usually only have the first type immediately to hand.

[Batman]

Stabbing doesn't require blades.I can stab you just as well with a screwdriver or an ice pick, and depending on tip an arrow is more like that than being stabbed with a knife

[Broomstick]

Mass killings... We really don't need this part of the American "culture"...

America doesn't need that part of American culture, either....

[Batman]

Shouldn't we (and especially US americans) be worried that this happens so frequently by now it is considered part of american culture?

[Formless]

Its not part of our culture. Its part of our society. Saying the first implies its tolerated when it is most certainly not. Lets leave the hyperbole in the garbage bin where it belongs, okay?

[The Infidel]

Its not part of our culture. Its part of our society. Saying the first implies its tolerated when it is most certainly not. Lets leave the hyperbole in the garbage bin where it belongs, okay?

Yes, this is better wording, but I didn't find it yesterday, hence "culture" in quotation marks.

Edit: I missed Enterprises post, where he wrote the same as me.