A stray bullet was fired in the red light district of the Copenhagen area of Vesterbro today before noon – from a policeman’s service gun.

However, the marksman was not an officer but a member of the public, who the police have described to Ekstra Bladet as a “drug addict” who went “beserk” when he was arrested and helped into a blue police van.

It is believed he slipped a gun out of an officer’s holster and randomly fired it across Viktoriagadej. Nobody was hurt.

The section of the street, which links Istedgade to Vesterbrogade, is just 200 metres from the fashionable Meatpacking District.

Still cordoned off
Several hours later, the van is still parked in the middle of the road, which remains closed to traffic.

Michel Blanes, who lives on Istedgade, told the Copenhagen Post the police response was “heavy-numbered and handed”.

“I was looking out of my window, and then suddenly with military efficiency six to eight officers rapidly carried a man, restrained and upside down like he was a delicate china doll, to a waiting vehicle,” he said.

Not typical of the area
The area is well-known to police (particularly given that its main city station is one block away) for attracting large numbers of drug addicts and dealers, as well as prostitutes and kerb-crawlers.

But incidents involving guns and violence are relatively rare, contends Blanes.

“I consider the area extremely safe despite the unsavoury characters,” he said.

“Although the number of non-Danish drug addicts does tend to increase in the summer, and that might raise the perceived level of threat.”