A 15-year-old boy allegedly knew about a plan for the stabbing rampage that killed three people and wounded at least eight others — five seriously —at a diversity festival in Germany.
The unidentified teen was taken into custody for questioning early Saturday as investigators tried to track down the attacker, German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.
The killer is believed to have shared his reasons for carrying out Friday's deadly bloodbath with the boy, the prosecutor general investigating the case told reporters.
"Based on the overall circumstances, we assume that the initial suspicion of a terrorist-motivated act cannot be ruled out," he said.
In a prepared statement, police said special units had joined the "large-scale search for the perpetrator," with an investigation "in full swing."
The carnage took place around 9:30 p.m. in a crowd gathered in Solingen's central market square on the first day of "Festival of Diversity" to mark the 650th anniversary of the city, which is renowned for its knife manufacturing industry.
The remainder of the three-day festival was canceled.
The killer aimed for people's throats, a police spokesperson told Reuters, which said a second spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny that detail.
A musician known as Topic said on social media that he was performing on a nearby stage when the stabbings began but was told not to stop to "avoid causing a mass panic attack," Reuters reported.
Topic said that he was eventually told to stop the show and that "since the attacker was still on the run, we hid in a nearby store while police helicopters circled above us."
Concerns about increasing knife violence in Germany recently prompted Interior Minister Nancy Faeser to propose limiting the length of blades that can be carried in public to less than 2.4 inches, down from about 4.7 inches now, according to the Associated Press.
