How long will this nightmare last?': first-hand account of Copenhagen gun attack
Here I sit in my wretched hiding place behind a black curtain, clenching on to a round coffee table – a makeshift shield made of plastic that’s hard, but surely not hard enough. This is not the death I would wish for. Is this really how it ends?
The fight for freedom of speech has always been the most important thing for me. But was it really meant to be that I would die for it? Martyrdom is for fanatics, not democrats. Imagine dying for an ugly drawing of a Swedish dog with a prophet’s face. What an absurd reason to die. What an absurd reason to kill.
Like a fool I hold my coffee table shield in front of me, knowing it will not provide any protection whatsoever if the perpetrator – or could there be more than one? – forces himself into the hall and starts shooting, as he has done outside. Then it will surely be over. Like Charlie Hebdo’s editorial staff, we are all helpless victims in this room. We are sitting ducks. How painful is it to be riddled with bullets? How long does it take to die? What will become of my girlfriend? What will become of my son?
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Was it for minutes or seconds that these thoughts crossed my mind? Looking back, the terror spreads out in a long, foggy dream. But how could I forget that death was the reason I was here, that we all were – we members of the Lars Vilks committee, set up to defend the freedom of speech in the name of the cartoonist who drew that famous image of the prophet Muhammad back in 2007. Our debate comes against the background of the terrible assault on Charlie Hebdo.
Inna Shevchenko, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian feminist group Femen, is talking about the thing that unites us all. “It’s about freedom of speech, but,” she says. “The key word here is ‘but’. Why do we still continue to say but when we – ”
Bang bang bang bang. What the hell is going on? Is it fireworks? Troublemakers? A sick practical joke? Everyone is paralysed for five or 10 seconds. There’s a short silence. Somebody outside shouts in a foreign language. A hideous howl, filled with ferocity and a deep hatred. And then it begins, the mass escape. Not with hysteria, shrieks and cries, but with an absolute will to save oneself, whoever can. Many head towards the back entrance, others find cover behind chairs and desks, but where is shelter? Where are the hiding places? Nowhere. Here, there is no safety, absolutely none at all.
Shots are still being fired – no longer with an automatic weapon, but with pistols. There is more shouting, this time in Danish. It’s the police’s incident commander, who is commanding his officers.
An agitated man walks in. He is totally bloodshot, as if he’s on the world’s worst adrenalin rush. He runs back and forth, heavily limping due to a bullet wound in his leg. There is blood on his trousers, and his face is convulsed in pain. He says we should stay where we are. This is absurd, I think to myself. God, it’s like he’s Bruce Willis, a muscular little guy with a drawn gun … what kind of a sick film have I landed in? But I recognise ‘Bruce Willis’ as a friend, a protector. He is the one standing between us and the murderous maniac or maniacs out there.
The automatic weapon is now silent. I stay in my pathetic hiding place for what seems an eternity. It’s quiet now. Ten minutes pass before we hear police sirens. Is the danger over? Are there others who are wounded? Are there any victims? We know nothing. I move to place myself in a larger group who have taken shelter behind the bar.
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More time passes. There aren’t many of us left. Most of the attendees have decided to escape through the back door, including all of the panelists except one. What are we to do? We are trapped here. The police has set up a perimeter around the building. I am apparently the only committee member in the hall. I blurt out: “We must continue, there is nothing else to do. Continue with the people who are still here!” And Agnieszka Kolek, the chairwoman of the committee, is here. So we listen to her.
Kolek, a fortysomething woman with a sharp face, is remarkably succinct. There’s no sign of anxiety. She is completely uninhibited in her body language. Calmly, she asks for the lights to be dimmed so we can have a better look at the details of the pictures in her PowerPoint presentation. The remaining attendees slowly find their chairs, as if they are sleepwalking. Kolek speaks and completes her presentation. But nobody seems to be listening. Everyone is hunched over their mobile phones and texting; they are silent, and shaking.
Shortly afterwards, the evacuation bus arrives to take us all for interrogation at the police station. Outside we find out that someone from the seminar has died. It is our good friend Finn Nørgaard. It was not a bad dream, not a stupid film. Terror has hit, it has hit Copenhagen, it has hit us all right in the heart. The question is, how long will this nightmare last?
Niels Ivar Larsen is a Danish journalist. This is an edited version of a piece published by his newspaper, Information.
Translated by Mashaal Mir