An armed man inflicted sometimes serious injuries on half a dozen passers-by on Wednesday afternoon in the town of Zofingen, in northern Switzerland, before being arrested. Some six hours after the alert was given and several hours after the arrest of the attacker, the police had still given no indication of his identity or the motive.
In a message on the social network X, the cantonal police clarified that they had six injured, some of whom suffered serious cuts. Around 4 p.m., the man first attacked a passer-by at the station of this town of around 12,000 inhabitants, which is located around sixty kilometers south of Basel and the same distance west of Zurich.
He then walked and attacked several other people apparently at random before retreating into a house, according to the press release. After approximately two hours, and after being contacted by a specialized team, the man was arrested by the police.
He was also injured and was taken to hospital, said cantonal police spokesman Bernhard Graser. He told the daily Zofinger Tagblatt that the attacker was self-inflicted.
Pregnant woman
The regional daily Aargauer Zeitung reports the testimony of a reader whose pregnant wife was allegedly attacked by the stranger “with a metal object”. The woman “was injured in the face and has some swelling but is doing well given the circumstances,” the husband told the newspaper. She was transported to the cantonal hospital of Aarau, about twenty kilometers from Zofingen.
The police launched an appeal for witnesses and asked the population to send them videos and photos for the purposes of the investigation. Images broadcast by the Aargauer Zeitung show a large deployment of police and emergency services.
Deployment of force
In particular, we can see members of the police in helmets and harnessed with bulletproof vests taking equipment from a black 4X4, handguns at their belts. Other police officers also wearing helmets and bulletproof vests come out of a vehicle that arrives in a rush, armed with assault rifles. We also see several ambulances and a helicopter.
So that the latter could land, the local football club, SC Zofingen, was forced to cancel its training sessions in order to free up the pitch, specifies the daily. The children were handed over to their parents to return home, explains the club manager.