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| Hague Police Report ‘Stabbing Incident’ | Hague Police Report ‘Stabbing Incident’ |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| The police in The Hague said three young people were injured in a “stabbing incident” on Friday evening on Grote Markt Street, a central thoroughfare busy with Black Friday shoppers. | |
| Photos posted on social media showed emergency services and helicopters at the scene. The police said they were searching for a suspect, but did not respond to requests for further comment. | |
| The authorities were investigating a potential motive and described the three victims as minors. The Dutch newspaper AD said that investigators had found a knife in the area. | |
| The dramatic police response to the incident reflected heightened fears on the Continent after a burst of violence in London earlier Friday was declared a “terrorist incident” by the British police. In a chaotic altercation on London Bridge, several people tackled a man wearing a fake bomb, whom the police shot dead at the scene. Two people were stabbed to death. | |
| The busy holiday season — targeted for attacks around Europe in recent years — may also have put the Dutch authorities on edge. Last month, Amsterdam’s international airport was briefly paralyzed as security forces responded to a false alarm of a hijacking, and this week, the Dutch police arrested two men accused of plotting a terrorist attack. | |
| But unlike in France, Belgium and Germany, there have been no major organized terrorist attacks on Dutch soil in recent years. | |
| In most of the country, police presence tends to be subdued and heavy automatic rifles are rarely seen in the hands of law enforcement. Exceptions are at Schiphol, the country’s biggest airport, and at Parliament, about 400 yards from the stabbing site, which are guarded by the well-armed military police, the royal Marechaussee. | |
| Earlier this year in Utrecht, about 45 miles east of The Hague, a gunman opened fire in a tram, killing three and injuring five. SWAT teams responded and a section of the neighborhood was cordoned off as authorities scrambled to deal with what was believed to be a terrorist attack. The shooter, who at the time of the killings faced rape charges, told police he had acted alone. | |
| Claire Moses contributed reporting. |