Kongsberg attack
2021 mass stabbing in Norway
On 13 October 2021, five people were killed and three others were injured in a mass stabbing in Kongsberg, Buskerud, Norway. The perpetrator, Espen Andersen Bråthen, attacked several locations, during which he also used a bow and arrow to injure at least one of the victims, before he was arrested by responding police.
Bråthen, who had a history of mental illness, was charged with murder. Although he pleaded guilty, in June 2022, a court determined his mental illness meant he could not be held criminally responsible for his actions, and he was sentenced to psychiatric confinement.
Attack
Police were first notified of a person walking around Kongsberg with a bow and arrows in a quiver on his shoulder at 18:12 CEST. Upon receiving the first calls, a patrol was quickly sent to the location of the attack, followed by three others. Armed officers first confronted the perpetrator six minutes after the first calls, but he shot several arrows at them and escaped. Afterwards, he committed the attack and killed his victims, according to the police chief.
The perpetrator is said to have first started attacking people inside a Coop Extra supermarket and then moved over a large area. Police said that he first started firing arrows at people but constantly missed, that he used two other weapons in addition to the bow and arrow, and that all of the fatalities were a result of stabbings rather than arrow shots, as he discarded or lost his bow at some point during the attack. At least one non-fatal injury was attributed to an arrow shot into a man's back.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kongsberg attack” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.