The Norwegian police on Monday said that while a hunting bow had been used in last week\u2019s rampage, the victims, four women and a man, were stabbed to death.<\/b>
\nThe attacker who went on a rampage in a town in Norway killed his five victims using a \u201csharp object,\u201d not a bow and arrow as had been widely reported, the Norwegian police announced on Monday. Espen Andersen Brathen, who confessed to the crime, did shoot arrows at people from a hunting bow during part of his attack last Wednesday in the town of Kongsberg, which also wounded at least three people. At some point in the rampage, the police said at a news conference Monday, he discarded the bow. The fatal blows are now said to have been delivered by a stabbing weapon or weapons, which the police did not identify. Four women and one man were killed in the attack about 50 miles southwest of Oslo. But it was the rarity of the other weapon used in the attack that caught the world\u2019s attention, and if the hunting bow did not cause any deaths, it was responsible for at least one injury, that of an off-duty police officer who was struck by an arrow. One eyewitness, Rebecca Uttgard,17, said she was in the town square Wednesday night near a shop owned by her mother and frequented by two of the people killed, when she heard warning shots fired by police officers responding to the scene. \u201cI saw the arrows strewn on the ground,\u201d Ms. Uttgard said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think, I just ran.\u201d Friends and relatives of the victims said that a machete was also used in the attack. At the news conference, the police also addressed the shifting understanding of what prompted the attack. The police had previously contacted Mr. Brathen, a 37-year-old Danish citizen and Muslim convert, over concerns that he had been radicalized, and the Norwegian security agency, known as PST, said soon after the attack that it appeared to be an \u201c act of terrorism .\u201d But on Monday, Per Thomas Omholt, the chief of police in the Sor-Ost Police District, said of the motivation for the crime that \u201cthe initial hypothesis about conversion to Islam is weakened.\u201d \u201cHe has said he converted in public, but he has not lived up to this in practice,\u201d Mr. Omholt said. As part of the continuing investigation, the police have formally interviewed 60 people. \u201cWe are working to map the charged person\u2019s background and motives, interview witnesses, maintain contact with the next of kin and victims, collect and analyze CCTV footage, conduct forensic examinations and examine electronic evidence,\u201d Mr. Omholt said Monday. The attack rattled the quiet town Kongsberg, where violent crime is rare and the victims were apparently chosen at random. \u201cIt is difficult to swallow,\u201d said Sturla Erstein,55, a Kongsberg resident of 30 years. \u201cI knew both the killer and one of the women who was killed.\u201d Mr. Erstein said he had been particularly close with the victim, a ceramicist who sold him a cup around the corner from the memorial where he now places flowers. \u201cI use that cup every day,\u201d he said. The attack on Wednesday has prompted debates across Norway about how to deal with mentally unstable people who might pose a threat to others. \u201cIt\u2019s the million-dollar question,\u201d said Arne Christian Haugstoyl, the head of Norway\u2019s counterterrorism unit at the Police Security Service. \u201cI think there will be an important debate in Norway about what we can do about people who are severely mentally ill.\u201d He said that attacks carried out by lone individuals or just a few people, and planned and executed in a short period of time, are one of the greatest threats to security in Norway. \u201cThis is not just a problem in Norway,\u201d Mr. Haugstoyl said. \u201cAll security services all over the world, even the largest ones, struggle to stop this type of attack, because there are few preparations, not much communication, and little information for a security organization to monitor.\u2019\u2019 Norway\u2019s new prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, who visited Kongsberg last week, said that \u201cmodern societies are vulnerable\u201d to such attacks. \u201cAnd in some ways we just have to live with vulnerability,\u201d Mr. Store said in an interview with The New York Times. \u201cVulnerability comes from people falling out of community, and this is a phenomenon that we really need to study and address.\u201d \u201cWe have to accept that you cannot find one response through a government decision that will eliminate vulnerability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n