Four people were injured in a stabbing attack outside a shopping mall in the Finnish city of Tampere on Thursday afternoon, with police confirming the incident was not terror or racially motivated. The attack occurred at approximately 4:23 PM local time outside the Ratina shopping center in Finland’s third-largest city, located about 180 kilometers north of Helsinki.
Police cordoned off the area and arrested a suspect, believed to be a Finnish man in his twenties according to local media reports. The condition of the four wounded individuals was not immediately clear, though witnesses reported seeing bystanders providing first aid to victims lying on the ground when police arrived. Blood stains were visible at the scene, which workers later cleaned with pressure washers.
The incident follows a pattern of recent attacks in Finland, including a school stabbing in May that injured three pupils and a deadly shooting at a Vantaa school last year. Police emphasized there was no ongoing threat to the public following the arrest, and witnesses were taken to the mall’s second floor for questioning.