After the knife attack at Hamm University, one of the victims died. The 30-year-old woman from Essen succumbed to her injuries.
After the knife attack at a university in Hamm, a 30-year-old succumbed to her serious injuries. The woman from Essen died in a hospital on Saturday, the police and public prosecutor in Dortmund announced on Sunday. The alleged perpetrator has since been placed in a psychiatric hospital. The 34-year-old has been suffering from mental problems for a long time, said the spokesman for the Dortmund public prosecutor, Henner Kruse, on Saturday.
The man apparently attacked four people indiscriminately on Friday, some seriously injuring them. The police spoke of an amok attack. According to the prosecutor, the 34-year-old was examined by a psychiatric expert on Saturday morning. After that, temporary accommodation in a specialist hospital was ordered. During the act, he may have been innocent.
According to Kruse, the 34-year-old only left the psychiatric ward of a hospital on Friday at his own request. He was there because of a suicide attempt. The suspect had been in psychotherapeutic treatment for a long time; “Numerous psychotropic drugs” were discovered during a search of his apartment in the student residence.
Hamm’s alleged perpetrator was a long-term student
The man therefore felt pursued by a group of people who, in his opinion, were trying to kill him. That’s why he reported it to the police. According to Hamm Police Commissioner Thomas Kubera, the last contact with the police was at the beginning of April. The psychological problems of the long-term student were also known at the university, and his parents also knew about them.
According to the previous investigations, the 34-year-old went into a building of the Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences in Hamm on Friday afternoon. According to Kruse, he had two kitchen knives he had bought recently. The man then attacked a 22-year-old woman in the foyer, then a 22-year-old man and then another 22-year-old woman. It’s a “chance victim”.
The first two victims suffered injuries including neck injuries. According to the public prosecutor, the third woman attacked suffered eight stitches in the abdomen and had to undergo emergency surgery. Life is no longer in danger.
The 34-year-old then entered a lecture hall and stabbed a 30-year-old lecturer at the university who was listening to a guest lecture. She suffered “very serious internal injuries” from stitches in the chest area. The woman was taken to a university hospital by helicopter and also had an emergency operation. The public prosecutor said on Saturday that the doctors saw no chance of survival for them.
The alleged perpetrator was overpowered by students in the lecture hall and then arrested by the police. He confessed to the crime and stated that he saw no other way out, Kruse said. Accordingly, the man assumed that those present in the university building belonged to the group that wanted to kill him.
The Dortmund police chief, Ralf Ziegler, paid tribute to the overpowering of the perpetrator by the students. They acted “very courageously and very, very quick-witted”. By intervening, they “certainly would have prevented countless other victims.”
The university canceled teaching in Hamm for Monday. However, the campus will be open to students “as a place to exchange ideas and pause”.
