Several injured in knife attack at Hamburg train station
Eighteen people were injured in a knife attack at the central train station in the northern German city of Hamburg on Friday, police said.
Earlier, emergency services had reported 17 injuries. Four people suffered life-threatening injuries, six were seriously injured and seven others sustained lighter injuries on the platform, officials said. All of the injured were taken to nearby hospitals.
Police said a 39-year-old German woman was detained at the station after stabbing people at random on platform 13/14.
She is to be brought before a judge on Saturday, a police spokesman told dpa, adding that the woman remains in police custody. The homicide squad has launched an investigation.
Investigators currently believe that this was the act of a lone perpetrator. Police spokesman Florian Abbenseth told dpa that the suspect did not resist arrest.
The police do not believe that the stabbing was a politically motivated act.
"Rather, we have findings that lead us to investigate whether she may have been in a state of mental distress," Abbenseth explained.
The knife used in the attack has been secured. There are many eyewitnesses who need to be interviewed, police said.
The incident, which occurred around 6 pm (1600 GMT) on Friday sparked a major police operation at Hamburg's central train station, one of the busiest public transport hubs in Germany.
Police said that a train on the track next to the platform seems not to have been involved in the incident.
While the platform where the stabbings occurred was cordoned off, the rest of the station continued to operate normally on Friday evening, albeit amid a strong police presence.
Four tracks were temporarily closed but reopened overnight after evidence was collected at the scene, railway operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) said. Passengers were advised to check schedules online, though services were expected to run on time by morning.
In a statement, DB expressed its "deep dismay" at the attack.
"Our thoughts and sympathy are with the injured," the company said, warning of disruption to journeys.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz held a phone call with Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher following the knife attack. Government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said Merz had offered the assistance of the federal government.
Merz wrote on X: "The news from Hamburg is shocking. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. My thanks go to all the emergency services on the ground for their rapid assistance."
Tschentscher wrote on X that the incident was shocking. He thanked the police and emergency services for their quick response and added: "The perpetrator is in custody. I wish the victims of the incident much strength and hope that those who are seriously injured will be saved."
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt condemned the knife attack, calling it shocking that people were targeted in such a "cowardly" way, according to the Interior Ministry. He expressed his sympathy for the victims and extended his gratitude to the police, emergency services and volunteers at the scene.
A ban on carrying knives has been in place at the station since October 2023, with another ban on knives on public transport having taken effect in December 2024.
Germany saw a number of attacks in public places in the run-up to parliamentary elections in February.
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Medscape
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Mental Scars: The Toll of Solitary Confinement in Canada
Fallon Venessa-Lynne Aubee, a Métis-Cree French transgender woman, has lost count of the number of times she spent in administrative segregation within Canada's federal penitentiary system. It started when she was first arrested in 2001 and brought into pretrial custody. It continued long after her conviction in 2003 of first-degree murder in a street gang contract killing case. Fallon Venessa-Lynne Aubee 'At intake, I disclosed I was trans and required my own accommodation. The officer looked me straight in the eyes and said, 'Oh, don't you worry. We know how to take care of trans people around here,'' recalled Aubee. This meant repeated periods in isolation. 'There were constant rumors of threats on my life, or my safety was in jeopardy, or someone would claim that there was something hidden in my cell. 'In segregation, everything in your life starts to come back at you, and your mental health starts to break down. You become the product of your environment,' she said. 'The way prison operates today is poison.' Structured Intervention Units (SIUs): What's in a Name? The segregation that Aubee experienced has since been replaced by SIUs, which were created by the Canadian government in 2019 in response to Canada's violations of the United Nations' Mandela Rules. These rules set the international standards for the treatment of prisoners. They restricted solitary confinement to a strategy of last resort and emphasized that confinement beyond 15 days was considered torture. SIUs were designed to separate incarcerated people from the mainstream population if correctional officers determined that they were a risk to their own safety or to the safety of others. In lieu of confinement for 22 hours or more daily without meaningful contact, key SIU provisions implied that confinement be as short as possible and promised at least 4 hours a day outside the cell, including 2 hours of 'meaningful human contact' with others. The goal was to reintegrate these individuals into the general prison population as quickly as possible. In a statement to Medscape Medical News, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) described SIUs as 'part of the historic transformation of the federal correctional system that is fundamentally different from the previous model.' But multiple analyses by the SIU Implementation Advisory Panel (SIU IAP) — which was commissioned by Public Safety Canada to monitor, assess, and report on issues associated with the implementation of SIUs — have demonstrated that not much has changed except the name. 'The picture painted by the data consistently shows that the practice of solitary confinement continues, and vulnerable groups appear to be especially at risk of experiencing its negative effects,' the panel wrote in December 2024. 'The most vulnerable groups are people who have active mental illnesses, perhaps treated or partially treated, who are symptomatic, and their behavior is a risk,' said Gary A. Chaimowitz, MB ChB, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at the McMaster University and head of the Forensic Psychiatry Program at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton in Hamilton, Ontario. Although Chaimowitz spends his time in provincial prisons, the same observation holds in federal or correctional institutions, he said. Gary A. Chaimowitz, MB ChB 'They're segregated not because of some sort of innate violent tendencies but because of aggressive and uncontrolled behavior due to an active mental disorder,' he said. 'At the same time, people suffering mental health challenges are probably difficult for CSC generally,' said Anthony Doob, PhD, professor emeritus of criminology at the University of Toronto, Toronto, and SIU IAP member. Anthony Doob, PhD 'When you have a difficult person who may be a target of other people or someone who is not terribly cooperative, an easy thing to do is to place them in a solitary confinement setting, and that's what we know is happening at the moment,' said Doob. Products of Their Environments Study after study has underscored the significant psychological effects of segregation and isolation. The adverse psychological outcomes include stress-related reactions, sleep disturbances, heightened anxiety and panic, irritability, aggression, rage, paranoia, cognitive dysfunction, hallucinations, loss of emotional control, mood swings, lethargy, depression, increased suicidality and instances of self-harm, and tendencies toward further social withdrawal. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and heightened retraumatization (ie, reliving traumatic experiences) when entering prison are also common, increasing the risk for new psychiatric disorders to emerge, especially when isolation is prolonged. Not only is there evidence that incarcerated persons with mental illnesses are 1.67 times more likely to be segregated, but findings from a recent meta-review have also shown 1.65 higher odds for an increase in recidivism (eg, violence, rearrests, or reincarceration) for as long as 7 years post-release among people who have experienced solitary confinement. Compared with the general prison population, people who experienced segregation were also 24% more likely to die within the first year post-release, particularly by suicide (78%) and homicide (54%). 'There's a hypothesis around shared social determinants of health and criminality, so if you are poor or less educated, there may be more of a chance of developing a mental illness and more of a chance that you may be involved in criminal behavior,' said Mathieu Dufour, MD, chief of Psychiatry at Institut national de psychiatrie légale Philippe-Pinel in Montréal and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and addictions at the University of Montréal, Montréal. Mathieu Dufour, MD Dufour, who is also president of the Canadian Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (CAPL), noted that mental illness is linked with a greater likelihood of being caught for committing an offense. Mirroring Society Though Indigenous people make up only 5% of Canada's population, they accounted for 33% of the general penitentiary and 44% of the SIU/restricted movement (RM) populations in 2024. Compared with all categories of accused persons, Indigenous offenders are sent to prison at younger ages, kept in custody longer, denied parole more frequently, and more often designated high-risk offenders. 'Indigenous people were locked up by colonialism: For example, in residential day schools. And now, we are disproportionately imprisoning them and then disproportionately putting them in solitary,' said Ruth Elwood Martin, MD, MPH, clinical professor emerita of population and public health and inaugural and past director of the Canadian Collaboration for Prison Health and Education at the University of British Columbia (BC) in Vancouver. Ruth Elwood Martin, MD, MPH Canada's Black population has not fared much better. The SIU IAP reported that Black persons, who accounted for 4.3% of the Canadian population, made up 9.7% of the general penitentiary and 17.5% of the SIU/RM populations. Overall, 95.1% of Black Canadians, especially the native-born, have been exposed to at least one traumatic event, be it oppression, racism, or segregation. Studies also indicate that racial discrimination increases the risk for severe depressive symptoms by more than 36-fold. The final SIU IAP report, released in December 2024, showed that in the first half of 2024, roughly a quarter of prisoners in SIUs had spent 62-769 days in them; most prisoners were Black (40.4%) or Indigenous (26.1%). A Revolving Door SIU IAP learned that prolonged SIU stays (ie, those lasting for more than 62 days) were common in individuals with high but stable mental health needs (15.4%) or various, worsening mental health needs (37.5%). Prolonged SIU stays were even more common in individuals who stayed in the SIU for 16-61 days (37.4% and 49.1%, respectively). Goals for achieving the legally required time out of cell (4 h/d) and correctional programming were 'largely not achieved,' according to the report. Challenges related to the time out of cell and human contact requirements have arisen, said Doob. 'If you offer someone an unpleasant, dangerous time out of cell and they refuse, well, you've still offered them. We've heard stories from prisoners that sometimes they're offered time, and they don't want to leave, and sometimes, they're offered an opportunity to go out with a person whose been threatening them, and they're afraid of being killed or beaten up,' he said. Findings also highlighted the challenge of split or multiple SIU stays, in which incarcerated persons are released from SIU and then start anew a few days later. Many of these multiple stays have taken place in different institutions and regions, often in individuals with ongoing or worsening mental health problems. This constant movement doesn't help the continuity of their programming, either, said Doob. 'People with very complex mental health issues often end up being in prolonged isolation, probably because they shouldn't have been incarcerated in the first place,' noted Martin. Joey Toutsaint, a Dene man from Saskatchewan, fits that description. Toutsaint has been in federal custody for almost 20 years and has spent more than 2100 days in administrative segregation and many more in SIUs, observation cells, and other forms of isolation (eg, in regional treatment centers). Nicole Kief, executive director of Prisoners' Legal Services in Vancouver, said that Toutsaint has been diagnosed with multiple conditions, including PTSD, major depressive disorder, and personality disorders. He has had multiple, often violent interactions with correctional officers and is now serving an indefinite prison sentence after being labeled a dangerous offender. Prisoners' Legal Services provides legal aid services for provincial and federal prisoners in BC and has been advocating for Toutsaint for years. Nicole Kief Toutsaint's history is not unique. Originally part of a loving Dene family, Toutsaint lost both of his caregivers (his mother and grandfather) within a few months of each other when he was only 15. Kief said that the trauma landed him in the system, initially in youth correctional facilities for minor offenses, and then federal institutions when he was 18. 'Though he was first placed in solitary for his behavior, he also started to enter voluntarily for safety reasons. He told us that at age 19, the guards would let other prisoners into his cell to rape him. So, he understandably started to withdraw,' she said, 'and was constantly on guard in flight or fight mode.' 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But like many others, Lewis (who said that he was surrounded by violence but did not participate in it) was caught up in the system of isolation well before he landed in federal prison. Around age 16, he would be locked in a room at a Youth Custody Centre 'for hours on end, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, I can't remember exactly,' he said. 'I try to push these things out of my memory bank.' Lewis spent roughly 250 days in 'old school' solitary, once as long as 195 days when he was being transferred to another institution. He opined that SIUs were no different, except that they had a window that could be opened slightly. 'I remember when SIUs were first designed and being tested on people like me who were incarcerated; they [CSC] were promoting them as not so bad. But when you were there, it was still the same level of isolation and a breeding ground for violence and segregation,' said Lewis. 'All segregation did was teach me how to operate in solitude,' he added. 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Rosemary Ricciardelli, PhD, professor of sociology and criminology at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, explained that CSC was never provided the time, support, infrastructure, or training needed to determine how to implement SIUs. The result is that correctional officers have also been adversely affected by expectations without effective management or resources. Rosemary Ricciardelli, Ph Lack of training and inconsistent policies have caused a mental health and suicide crisis among correctional officers, noted Ricciardelli, who also is a founding member of the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment. It's a side of the narrative that's rarely reported. 'Sixty percent [of correctional officers] are suffering from mental health disorders,' she said. More than a third have experienced suicidal ideation or attempts. 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Although the organization recognized the complexities of practicing within the correctional environment, the guidelines emphasized physicians' ethical responsibilities to incarcerated patients they were treating. It's a difficult balancing act. 'The main issue with practicing psychiatry in correctional settings is that we don't have final say; it's up to the correctional officers and correctional administration to decide, and they can veto our decision,' said Dufour. But Martin, who previously chaired the College of Family Physicians' Prison Health Special Interest Group, noted that it still behooves physicians working within the provincial and federal correctional systems to speak up. 'Our first obligation is to our patients. So, as much as possible, one should speak up in a collaborative way,' she said, and 'continue to take steps further if nothing happens or actions are not taken.' In April 2025, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia published a first-of-its-kind new practice standard for physicians in the province who care for incarcerated patients in isolation. Though acknowledging that physicians ultimately do not make decisions about where an offender is placed within the institution, the standard was intended to assist efforts to remove patients from isolation and move them to more appropriate spaces (eg, regional treatment centers) where they can receive the care that they need. It also required BC physicians to comply with the Mandela Rules. It has garnered the attention of medical regulators in other provinces, who are considering adopting similar standards. Moreover, Martin and her colleagues will soon release an educational toolkit for physicians that provides information on the impact of solitary confinement on patients, as well as ways to advocate on their behalf. But Dufour said that ethical responsibilities start before someone lands in prison and isolation. 'If physicians deal with psychiatric disorders before a patient goes to jail or prison, then they would not need as much stabilization or acute mental health treatment or seclusion. Their psychiatric symptoms would be better controlled.' Broken Crayons Still Color Aubee and Lewis have survived prolonged, repeated isolation, but both have been damaged by their experiences. For 22 years, Aubee has maintained her innocence and remained true to her Two-Spirit self. Now 66 and in a day parole facility, she said that she still does not have an Indigenous case manager, and her prospects for breast augmentation and gender-affirming surgery procedures (which had been part of her original release agreement but were later denied) are not bright. 'CSC murdered the person I was going to be,' said Aubee. Lewis started the Freedom Is a Must Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides mentorship, opportunity, and guidance to deter youth and adults involved in criminal activities or at risk for a life of crime. As co-executive director, he spends much of his time speaking at colleges and universities across Canada about injustices and ways to reform the system. Lewis has sued CSC several times. The most important suit involved an alleged assault by 30 guards when he was transferred to Millhaven. Like Aubee, he broke down when speaking about his experience in segregation and SIUs. 'The system is working exactly as it's designed to work. We need to reform it while it still exists, until we can abolish it and create something that serves the people,' he said. 'People that have made mistakes should not be depicted by just those mistakes. Freedom Is a Must Foundation is the place that shows that broken crayons can still color.' The Union of Canadian Correctional Officers and College of Family Physicians of Canada declined to be interviewed for this article. Aubee, Chaimowitz, Doob, Dufour, Martin, Kief, Ricciardelli, and Lewis reported having no relevant financial relationships.
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