A teenager was shot dead by police at Gran Canaria airport after allegedly threatening holidaymakers with a ‘large’ knife.
The 18-year-old Gambian, who reportedly also attacked and tried to rob a taxi driver, was shot five times at the Spanish airport on Saturday.
Video footage of the chaotic scenes has now emerged and shows the young man running at one of five National Police officers trying to stop him as members of the public sprint for safety.
It’s then thought he tried to attack the officer’s colleagues at which point shots were fired and he was killed.
According to court officials, one of five bullets struck him in the neck. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The teenager allegedly tried to board a flight to Gambia before the rampage, but was turned away after airport staff saw his ticket was for a flight on Thursday.
It’s said he then attempted to force his way through airport control, setting off a security scanner due to the knife he apparently had in his rucksack.
Ibon Dominguez, a spokesman for police union Jupol, called the officers’ response to the incident ‘proportional and congruent’.
He added: ‘The man with the knife could easily have ended the lives of one of those policemen.’
The Canary Islands High Court of Justice said in a statement: ‘A duty court in Telde has been investigating the circumstances in which a person who was shot by the police died on Saturday in the airport area.
‘At the moment the court is compiling the images of the multiple camera recordings from outside and inside the airport in order to establish a reconstruction of the events.
‘The man was shot five times, including once in the neck.
‘The videos show that the deceased was apparently out of his mind and carrying a large knife and after attacking a taxi driver he felled a police officer and tried to knock down another, and was wandering around armed in an area with a large number of people, creating a real danger for their physical integrity.
‘He was 18 years old.’
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