The Mayor of Amsterdam has given a “hero’s medal” to an English tourist who chased a knifeman through busy alleys and pinned him to the ground, bringing an end to his rampage.
Footage shows a man, in casual clothes, kneeling on top of the suspect and threatening to punch him as he waits for police while shoppers file past him near the central Dam’s Square on Thursday.
In a message on Instagram, Mayor Femke Halsema thanked him for his heroic actions.
He received a hero’s badge in her official residence, she told reporters.
“He is a very modest British man,” Halsema told Amsterdam news channel AT5. “He has no desire to become famous. He is now mainly concerned with the victims, he feels responsible for them.”
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She said the man made a decision in “a split second for which there should be a lot of appreciation”.
“The tourist was walking on Nieuwendijk and heard a commotion”, she said.
“He saw someone pass by and instinctively thought ‘this is not right, something bad is happening here’. He managed to tackle him to the ground.”
She said the five victims were now all stable, adding: “Everything is being done to determine the identity of the perpetrator.
“At this point that is not clear. As long as there is no clarity about that, we know little about the motive.”
An Amsterdam police spokesman told Dutch news outlet AD the British man did a great job performing a “rare citizens arrest”.
“We’re very proud of him, but we also want to point out that you need to be very careful if you want to make a citizen’s arrest. Most people are not trained for this sort of thing.”
The mystery man’s actions were hailed on social media with locals saying he should be made an honorary “Amsterdamer”.
One said on a TikTok: “What a hero! What a stunner! He sees danger and immediately intervenes and ensures that other fellow human beings are safe. Respect!”
The stabbings reportedly took place in various locations. The seriously injured victims were identified as a 67-year-old woman and a 69-year-old man from the United States, a 73-year-old woman from Belgium, a 26-year-old man from Poland and a 19-year-old Dutch woman from Amsterdam.
Authorities said in a statement that no motive had been established for the attack, but that police were considering a scenario where the man targeted victims at random.
An employee of the Febo fast food restaurant told The Independent the suspect was tackled to the ground outside the eatery by members of the public.
“I was trying to get to work and everything was closed down and locked off. The guy was lying there right in front of my work,” the employee, who declined to be named, said.