Copenhagen police say they killed a man early Sunday who opened fire on them close to the sites of two deadly shootings in the Danish capital.
Whether the man was responsible for two earlier attacks at a café and a synagogue that left one dead at each site has not been announced. Five police officers were wounded in the two shootings.
The gunman's escape following both attacks launched a massive manhunt in the city. Police focused their search in Norrebo, a predominantly immigrant district about three miles from the synagogue, placing one suspected address under observation, reported the BBC.
When the occupant returned, he noticed the officers, pulled out a gun and opened fire. He was killed by officers' return fire.
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Late Saturday evening, police were already searching for the gunman who earlier sprayed automatic weapon fire into a café where a debate on free speech was underway, when the second shooting occurred at a city synagogue. A Jewish man received a head wound and later died. Two officers were injured as well.
The large metro and train station nearby, Norreport, was evacuated, and people were told to stay in their homes while police searched for the gunman.
Copenhagen police released an image believed to show show the suspect in the first shooting at the freedom-of-speech event. The image was captured by a street camera near to where the gunman's getaway car was later found abandoned.
He had been describe as a male, wearing black pants and black shoes, with a "light gray jacket with multi-colored light fields."
A statement from U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan condemned the earlier shooting, calling it deplorable, and offered condolences and U.S. assistance in the investigation.
Patrick Pelloux, a columnist for French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, where Muslim terrorists killed 12 last month, told Agence France-Presse, "We must fight fascism at all costs. We are all Danish tonight."
Echoes of Charlie Hebdo rang through Denmark earlier Saturday when the first shooting occurred.
A gunman opened fire on a discussion of Islam and free speech at a Copenhagen café, killing one man and wounding three police officers.
The artist Lars Vilks, under the threat of death ever since publishing images of Muhammad in 2007, was at the discussion, leading police on the scene to believe the shooting may have been an assassination attempt.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has further condemned the shooting as "a terrorist attack," while Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has called it "a cynical act of violence" with all the signs of an assassination attempt and "act of terrorism."
Dozens of shots were reported fired into the Krudttoenden Cafe in northern Copenhagen during a discussion called "Arts, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression," according to Vilks' website.
Neither Vilks nor Francois Zimeray – the French ambassador to Denmark, who was also at the event – are among the injured.
The French government, still reeling from three days of violence in January that left 17 people dead after two Islamist gunmen attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo for publishing images of Muhammad, has been swift to respond.
French President Francois Hollande's office has announced French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve will go to Copenhagen "as soon as possible."
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, meanwhile, sent out a tweet: "Freedom attacked in #Copenhagen. Solidarity with the Danes. @BCazeneuve (French interior minister) is going there. France does not yield. #JeSuisCharlie."
Danish police, meanwhile, have not yet confirmed the shooting was a "terrorist act," according to the London Telegraph, but they are investigating it as though it may be.
Vilks has received numerous death threats and has lived under Swedish police protection since publishing drawings depicting Muhammad as a dog in 2007. In 2012, an American woman calling herself Jihad Jane was sentenced to 10 years in prison for plotting to kill him.