Copenhagen mall shooter found guilty of all charges

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CN) — The 23-year-old man who shot and killed several people in the Field’s mall outside of Copenhagen on July 3 last year was convicted for murder and attempt of murder Wednesday by the City Court of Copenhagen.

The gunman, whose name has not been released by authorities, received the hardest sentence available: indefinite placement in a closed forensic psychiatric department, where security and restriction standards meet those of a prison. The department is small and reserved for 30 prisoners who are deemed extraordinarily dangerous.

During the reading of the verdict, the judge emphasized the defendant’s level of planning and preparation. Key evidence included handwritten notes on the attack, the rifle he brought to the mall, and the fact that he went and examined the doors beforehand.

While the prosecution and defense both agreed on an insanity defense from the outset of the case, defense attorney Luise Høj argued for a milder sentence of placement within the psychiatric system where the defendant would live under more “normal hospital conditions” and be allowed to transfer between medical units.

The shooting stands as a dark chapter in Danish criminal and psychiatric history, especially since the young man tried to phone the Danish Mental Health Fund’s advisory line for 16 minutes before going into the mall and opening fire with his rifle. Due to the holiday season, there was no worker to operate the line.

A task force that the Capital Region of Denmark established to investigate the defendant’s psychiatric history concluded that he saw no less than 13 different mental health workers in the six months before the shooting.

Danish newspaper Politiken recently spoke to one of the task force members, a chief doctor in psychiatry, who said that the shooting could have been prevented had the man received a correct diagnosis and medical treatment for paranoid schizophrenia earlier on.

The defendant’s mental health has been a focal point in the courtroom. As the gunman is deemed insane, he is exempted from criminal law. For the same reason, Danish media has decided not to print his name, and Courthouse News follows that procedure.

Throughout the trial, the defense attorney advised her client not to speak, as his memory and recollection of the incident remains blurry. The man has recognized his responsibility for the attacks, however and he took the opportunity to make a statement to the court on the last day of trial.

“After I started receiving strong antipsychotic medication, I can no longer recognize myself in what I have done. … Apologies to the relatives. Apologies to the survivors. Apologies to those who did not survive. Apologies to those who are traumatized. Sorry,” he said.

More than 20 witnesses gave their statements in court.

One of them was a 13-year-old boy who was hiding on the escalator at the mall and begged the defendant not to shoot.

“I am real, this is real, don’t shoot,” the boy said. The 23-year-old man later stated how those were the words that brought him “back to reality” and made him stop the rampage.

The defendant killed three people during the mall shooting: a 46-year-old man who died in front of his children, a 17-year-old boy who worked at the cinema, and a 17-year-old girl on her way to a Harry Styles concert.

Seven others survived with injuries, half of them severely. The defendant used a SIG Sauer 200 STR match rifle obtained from the weapons cabinet of a shooting club member. Denmark allows gun ownership only for the purposes of hunting and sport.

In the wake of the Copenhagen mall shooting, Danish politicians, health authorities and experts have debated how to improve conditions in the public health care system so that psychiatric patients like the defendant can receive better help in time.

Several claim that the treatment of mentally ill patients in the Danish public health care sector has been vastly underprioritized.

In an interview with national news station TV 2, the killer’s mother said that her son has always battled with mental problems including violent fantasies and hallucinations. When he contacted a psychiatric center in January 2022, roughly half a year before the shooting, she was relieved.

He was initially signed up for a special psychosis treatment called OPUS for young patients and had qualified staff around him. Help was quickly cut off, however, when documents showed that issues were present already at a teenage state; thus his psychosis didn’t live up to the mandatory criteria of being “new.”

Upon investigation of the defendant’s case, the task force concluded that there was several areas of improvement for the Danish psychiatry, including increased treatment continuity, better diagnostics and a smoother case handling of patients.

After Wednesday’s verdict, the 23-year-old man stands to be transferred immediately. Former inmates have spent an average of nine years at the closed psychiatric department in the smaller town of Slagelse west of Copenhagen.

The man’s sentence is indefinite.