Three people were killed and eight injured in a shooting spree at a German festival

• Three dead and eight injured in knife attack at festival

• Police arrest 15-year-old in possible connection

• Rest of the festival weekend cancelled

SOLINGEN, Germany (Reuters) – A shooting spree at a folk festival in the western German city of Solingen in which a man killed three people and injured eight others was “possibly an act of terrorism”, an official said on Saturday, as the manhunt for the unknown attacker continued.

Police said they had arrested a 15-year-old and were investigating whether there was a possible connection to the attacker, who is still at large.

Markus Caspers, an official from the Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office, said at a press conference in the afternoon that “terrorism” could not be ruled out because no other motive was known and the victims did not appear to be connected.

A police officer, Thorsten Fleiss, confirmed at the same press conference that the attacker had apparently aimed at his victims' throats.

“The investigation and search for possible additional perpetrators and causes of the crime are in full swing,” the police said in a statement.

The incident occurred late Friday when the man attacked several people with a knife, police said. The motive is still unclear.

“The perpetrator must be caught quickly and punished to the fullest extent possible under the law,” said Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a post on X.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said security authorities were doing everything in their power to catch the person and investigate the background to the attack at the Fronhof, a market square in Solingen where live bands were playing.

The city hosted a festival to celebrate its 650th anniversary in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which borders the Netherlands.

The police cordoned off the square on Saturday, and passers-by laid candles and flowers in front of the barriers.

“We are full of shock and sadness,” said Solingen’s mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach to journalists on Saturday morning.

The German musician, who goes by the pseudonym Topic, said he was playing on a nearby stage when the incident occurred. He was informed of the incident but was told to move on “to avoid a mass panic attack,” he posted on Instagram.

Eventually he was told to stop, and “with the attacker still fleeing, we hid in a nearby store while police helicopters circled overhead,” Topic wrote.

The authorities have cancelled the rest of the festival weekend.

Fatal stabbings and shootings are relatively rare in Germany. The government announced earlier this month that it wanted to tighten the rules on knives that can be carried in public by reducing the maximum permitted length.

In June, a 29-year-old police officer died after being stabbed in Mannheim during an attack on a right-wing extremist demonstration. Several people were injured in a knife attack on a train in 2021.

North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul visited the crime scene early Saturday. He told reporters that it was a targeted attack on human life, but declined to comment on the motives.

Solingen, known for its knife industry, is a city with about 165,000 inhabitants.

(Additional reporting by Thilo Schmuelgen and Rene Wagner; Editing by William Mallard, Sam Holmes and Frances Kerry, Kirsten Donovan)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Stabbing at German festival leaves 3 dead and 8 injured; 15-year-old arrested