On Sunday night, a car drove several people onto a sidewalk in the center of Steinkjer. One person is confirmed dead and two people are slightly injured after the incident.
The deceased is a man in his twenties from Steinkjer. Relatives have been notified and the crisis team has been contacted. In addition, it was decided to perform an autopsy on the deceased to determine the cause of death.
Police have arrested and charged one person with negligent homicide in this case. The accused is a man in his thirties from Steinkjer. They say the arrest went well.
– The charge of negligent homicide is based on information currently available to police, Borg said at the press conference.
– The police are taking the incident very seriously, says police lawyer Malin Borg.
Technical investigations are still ongoing and the police are currently interviewing witnesses. Several hypotheses are developed.
– A central question in the case is whether it was an accident or an intentional act.
The accused has been made aware of the charge and will be questioned on Sunday afternoon.
– For the purposes of the investigation, the accused will be presented for imprisonment on Monday morning, says Borg.
There must be no connection between the accused and the deceased. The police will try to shed light on the existence of a motive behind the act.
– We can confirm that the accused is already known to the police, says Borg, who does not want to comment on the cases to which this applies.
A national arming order was given earlier on Sunday. This decision was taken by the Norwegian police leadership, based on information provided by the Steinkjer police.
– It was in relation to the situation and the description we had of what had happened in the center of Steinkjer, explains chief investigator Kjetil Mollan.
Even though national arming has been decided, the police have no information to suggest that anyone in Steinkjer or elsewhere in Norway should be concerned about similar incidents.