Police at the scene after the attack in Kongsberg, Norway. Photo / AP
Police at the scene after the attack in Kongsberg, Norway. Photo / AP
A "hero" off-duty police officer saved people's lives during a deadly bow and arrow attack in Norway even while he was injured with an arrow in his back, witnesses said.
Espen Brathen, a Danish citizen who recently converted to Islam, killed five people in Kongsberg, a picturesque town near Oslo, in a bow and arrow rampage on Wednesday evening.
But more could have died had the as-yet-unnamed police officer not intervened, locals told The Telegraph on Friday.
"I had my headphones on and saw this man come towards me. He said for me to go home and stay inside," said Markus Alexander Kultima, 23, who visibly shook and fought back tears as he recounted his experience.
"When I walked past him, I saw the arrow sticking out of his back."
"Those few metres, from the place that we met to when I walked home, were very, very long," he added.
"I think he's a hero. He saved my life."
Another local resident, who lives above the supermarket where Brathen began the attack, said she was walking up a road when the off-duty officer "ran up to me and shouted, 'You must go away, you must go away! There is a man inside attacking people.'"
Espen Andersen Brathen will undergo a psychiatric evaluation after admitting to the killing of five people in Kongsberg. Photo / Supplied
The man was briefly hospitalised but has now been released, according to local sources.
Per Thomas Omholt, head of the regional police, said: "At this point we can't say much about the officer, it is a rare case in which a police officer becomes a victim in such a case.
"What we can say is that he did a very good job, and helped many people out of the store when the attack took place."
Brathen, 37, has confessed to the killings and is being held in a medical institution rather than jail.
He is being held on five counts of preliminary murder and three counts of preliminary attempted murder. Preliminary charges are a step short of formal charges, and a terror-related charge could be brought later if the evidence supports it.
Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere (right), and Minister of Justice and Emergency Management Emilie Enger Mehl honor the four women and a man killed. Photo / AP
A judge ruled on Friday he should remain in custody for at least four weeks while officials complete psychiatric evaluations.
Police inspector Omholt said Brathen appeared to have been motivated by a range of factors, including "anger, revenge, impulse, jihad, illness and provocation".
"The hypothesis that has been strengthened the most in the first days of the investigation is that the background is illness," Omholt said.
Doubts have arisen about the mental health of the attacker and whether he can be held legally responsible for his actions.
Police at the scene after the attack in Kongsberg, Norway. Photo / AP
A psychiatric evaluation began on Thursday, which was expected to take up to several months.
"He was handed over to health services on Thursday evening after an evaluation of his health condition," prosecutor Ann Iren Svane Mathiassen told AFP.
Brathen is believed to have acted alone when he killed four women and a man, aged between 50 and 70, in several locations in picturesque Kongsberg, a town of some 25,000.
The suspect was previously known to Norway's anti-terrorism police, and he had been flagged as a radicalisation risk.
Local police were on Friday considering whether to report themselves to the National Bureau of Investigation over an apparently slow response to the deadly incident.
Reports suggest that all five people died after police were first contacted.
One of those victims was Hanne Englund, a potter in her 50s who was described by locals as "smiley" and "easy going".
Flowers and candles are placed at the scene of an attack for the victims in in Kongsberg, Norway. Photo / AP
She was known for making pottery that would be distributed at Kongsberg's annual jazz festival, the highlight of the town's social calendar, a care worker who lives in the area told The Telegraph.
Kjeldsen, a man in his 80s who lives in the same building as two of the victims, said the attack was "terrible".
"He destroyed the glass doors, shot them, then ran out the main door [onto the main road] and away".
As Kjeldsen was speaking to The Telegraph on the street, a local woman came up to him and collapsed in tears in his arms, having just learned about the deaths of her neighbours in the close-knit community.
Norwegian media reported that Brathen was subject to two prior court rulings, including a restraining order against him regarding two close family members after threatening to kill one of them, and a conviction for burglary and purchasing narcotics in 2012.
Speaking anonymously, one of Brathen's neighbours described the suspect as a big person with a crew cut and a serious demeanour, who was always seen "alone".
