Knife attack in the middle of ravensburg – several seriously injured

It is a sunny autumn day when screams suddenly ring through the center of ravensburg. People are running around in a state of total panic, looking for help – that’s how mayor daniel rapp (CDU) tells it later in the day. The situation has calmed down a bit again. In the afternoon, things looked quite different: a man flinches with a knife on marienplatz square. He seriously injures three people, one of them life-threatening.

His motive? This is still completely unclear in the evening, as the investigators emphasize. A police spokesman says that a terrorist background has been ruled out for the time being. Beyond that he does not say much. The fact that the suspected perpetrator can be arrested quickly is probably also thanks to the city’s mayor: according to his own statements, it was he who confronted the man with the knife.

"I happened to be nearby," the 46-year-old told the german press agency. Because witnesses ran to him "in a complete state of turmoil", he went to the scene of the crime, the marienplatz. "Then suddenly the perpetrator was standing right in front of me with a knife covered in blood and threatening me. I then said: he should put the knife on the floor."This is what the man did. "It was such an instinctive act."

A short time later, the police arrived and arrested the man. One of the officers dropped his radio, rapp remembers. I took it, spoke into it and said: "we need reinforcement, we need more people".""And the reinforcement comes: according to the police in ravensburg, in the end all available officers are at the crime scene. The three injured are taken to the hospital. At first, as little is known about them as about the perpetrator.

Even mayor rapp can’t say much about it. By his own admission, he knows neither the perpetrator nor the victim. He describes the attacker as a "young, rather languid man". Police also speak of a young man. "At that moment, he made an uncertain impression on me," says rapp. The murder weapon is according to him a kind of butcher knife.

According to the police, one of the victims was found about 50 meters away from the others. It was initially unclear whether the person was attacked there or possibly ran away injured. Rapp remembers that an injured man later ran to the arrested man to "punch him in the face". But there is the police already there to prevent further aggression.

The last time there was a lot of them was on the northern part of marienplatz, as oberburgermeister rapp tells us. Already before the bloody attack, there had been repeated aggressive behavior and also quiescent disturbances. More police were on duty in the summer because of this, says rapp. In the current case this brought little. "When i arrived, there was no policeman at all."

Criminal police still securing traces at the crime scene in the early evening. Witnesses also to be questioned. For the time being, the police do not give further details. She also informed about the incident on twitter. "The crime scene has been cordoned off and we ask the public to observe the cordons," it says, for example. And: "if there are any confirmed findings, we will inform you promptly."