A major manhunt is underway after a Friday night mass stabbing attack killed three people and wounded eight more at a "Festival of Diversity" in Germany. Living up to the event's billing, witnesses to the bloodshed in the western German city of Solingen say the attacker was Arab in appearance -- a detail every major US news outlet is omitting from its coverage as our report is written.
"This evening we are all in shock, horror and great sadness in Solingen. We all wanted to celebrate our city's anniversary together and now we have dead and injured people to mourn," said Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach.
"I pray for all those who are still fighting for their lives." While the festival was indeed being held on the occasion of the city's 650th anniversary, rather than emphasizing German heritage and history, the organizers were apparently determined to put "diversity" front and center.
Their goal was accomplished in way they didn't intend, with the attacker himself reportedly infusing his own strain of "diversity."
According to the German newspaper Bild, witnesses say the knife-wielding murderer looked like a young Arab man. At around 9:45 pm, he lashed out at an apparently random assortment of victims at the Fronhof, a market square that was being used as a venue for live musical performances. Local news outlet Solinger Tageblatt provided spectator Lars Breitzke's account of what he saw:
Suprafon was playing on stage. Suddenly [Breitzke] realized from the expression on the singer Suzan Köcher's face that something was wrong. "And then a person fell over just a meter away from me," says Breitzke. At first he thought it was a drunk. But when he turned around, he saw other people lying on the floor. And several pools of blood.
After fatally slashing three people and wounding eight more -- five seriously -- the attacker was said to have fled toward a main street and is still at large. The evening's events were called off shortly after 10 pm as sirens wailed throughout the city of about 160,000 residents and a police helicopter circled above, Solinger Tageblatt reported. Special forces units from across the North Rhine-Westphalia state were deployed to Solingen as part of a large search operation, according to The Times of London.
While the Festival of Diversity was slated to extend all through the weekend, organizers opted to cancel it altogether shortly after midnight. Video circulating on social media purportedly shows the attack's bloody aftermath:
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