According to investigators, the attack in a Duisburg gym on Tuesday evening was “targeted” at one of the victims, a 21-year-old man. The Duisburg homicide commission announced the current status of the investigation on Thursday. The man was seriously injured in the attack with a slashing or stabbing weapon and is still in mortal danger, police said. According to the police, the approximately 30-year-old attacker is still on the run.
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure that it doesn’t stay like this for much longer,” said a police spokesman. Traces would continue to be secured in the studio and guests would be heard. The police also evaluate video recordings from the public space – for example from the bus and tram stop Duisburg-Rathaus directly opposite the fitness studio. “Somehow the perpetrator must have gotten there and back again,” said the spokesman. It will continue to be determined whether the man had planned the act or whether the attack resulted spontaneously from a dispute.
The other three victims, aged 24, 24 and 32, who, according to the investigation, were not the direct target of the attack, are out of danger. The police had set up an information portal on which observations, photos or videos can also be uploaded anonymously if desired. The spokesman said that there had already been information there. For investigative reasons, he could not say more.
There are no surveillance cameras in the gym itself. The investigators emphasized that it was therefore difficult to reconstruct the exact processes. “At the time of the crime there were about 80 members,” said the responsible prosecutor Jill McCuller on Wednesday the WDR. “Of course you can imagine that panic broke out and everyone ran wildly back and forth. And with all the panic that prevailed, we can’t even say how the perpetrator managed to escape or even in which direction the suspect then fled.”
The investigators are looking for other witnesses to the crime and have activated an information portal on the Internet, also for uploading photo or video files. Every police station also accepts tips.
