A lone gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire in an apartment and a hospital in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam on Thursday, killing three people, including a 14-year-old girl, police said. The shooting caused patients and doctors to flee the Erasmus Medical Center in central Rotterdam, including some who were carried out of the building in beds. Others barricaded themselves in rooms and taped handwritten signs to the windows to show their location. Police Chief Fred Westerbeke told reporters that the shooter was a 32-year-old student from Rotterdam. He was arrested at the hospital carrying a firearm. His identity was not released and the motive for the shooting is still under investigation. He first shot and killed a 39-year-old woman and seriously injured her 14-year-old daughter in an apartment near where the suspect lived, police reported. Chief Fred Westerbeke said. Police said the girl later died from her injuries. The shooter then headed to the nearby Erasmus Medical Center, where he shot and killed a 43-year-old man, a professor at the academic hospital, police said. He also started fires at the sites of both shootings. The identities of the victims were not revealed. The suspect was cooperating with police, Westerbeke said. “It was a black day,” said Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb. Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima expressed their condolences on social media. “Our hearts go out to the families and friends of the victims of the violence this afternoon in Rotterdam,” the royal couple wrote. “We also think of all those who lived in fear during these terrible actions,” they added. The Erasmus Medical Center appealed on social media for people not to go to the hospital, but later announced it was reopening. He said all appointments scheduled for Friday would go ahead as planned. This year there have been dozens of small explosions in homes and businesses across Rotterdam, attributed to rival drug gangs. There was no immediate suggestion that Thursday’s shooting was related to feuding drug gangs.
A lone gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire Thursday at an apartment and a hospital in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, killing three people, including a 14-year-old girl, police said.
The shooting caused patients and doctors to flee the Erasmus Medical Center in central Rotterdam, including some who were carried out of the building in beds. Others barricaded themselves in rooms and taped handwritten signs to the windows to show their location.
Police Chief Fred Westerbeke told reporters that the shooter was a 32-year-old student from Rotterdam. He was arrested at the hospital carrying a firearm. His identity has not been released and the motive for the shooting is still under investigation.
He first shot and killed a 39-year-old woman and seriously wounded her 14-year-old daughter in an apartment near where the suspect lived, Police Chief Fred Westerbeke said. Police said the girl later died from her injuries.
The shooter then headed to the nearby Erasmus Medical Center, where he shot and killed a 43-year-old man, a professor at the academic hospital, police said. He also started fires at the sites of both shootings.
The identities of the victims were not revealed.
The suspect was cooperating with police, Westerbeke said.
“It was a black day,” said Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima expressed their condolences on social media. “Our hearts go out to the families and friends of the victims of the violence this afternoon in Rotterdam,” the royal couple wrote. “We also think of all those who lived in fear during these terrible actions,” they added.
The Erasmus Medical Center appealed on social media for people not to go to the hospital, but later said it was reopening. He said all appointments scheduled for Friday would go ahead as planned.
This year there have been dozens of small explosions in homes and businesses across Rotterdam, blamed on rival drug gangs. There was no immediate suggestion that Thursday’s shooting was related to feuding drug gangs.
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