Police arrest man after Bremen mall evacuated
July 27, 2016
German police said early on Thursday they had arrested the man at Bremen's main train station.
The 19-year-old Algerian had fled a psychiatric facility earlier in the day yelling, "I'll blow you up."
However, police said they had no evidence he had any violent plans or ties to Islamist groups, despite saying that he sympathized with the gunman who killed nine people in a shopping center in Munich last Friday. The Algerian had made his comments while in police custody over the past weekend for several thefts.
The "Bild" newspaper reported earlier that the man had behaved suspiciously in the Weserpark mall, but gave no details.
A police spokesman had then confirmed that a police operation was under way in the area but gave no further details.
The man reportedly escaped from a hospital in Diepholz, Lower Saxony, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the shopping center which has around 170 outlets and 66,000 square-meters of retail space.
He had been moved into psychiatric care after he tried to hurt himself multiple times. Authorities determined he had consumed drugs, posing a possible danger to himself and others.
The alert cames as German reels from several violent attacks in the last week, which have triggered heightened security.
jbh/kl (Reuters, dpa)