Police in Germany said officers opened fire on an ax-wielding suspect who put fans in jeopardy near a Euro 2024 fan parade in the city of Hamburg Sunday. 

Hamburg Police said an unidentified person threatened officers “with a pickaxe and an incendiary device” in the St. Pauli district. 

The incident reportedly happened on the sidelines of a Euro 2024 soccer fan parade, which was unfolding hours before Poland and the Netherlands were scheduled to play in the city’s stadium, Volksparkstadion.

Officers deployed their guns, and the attacker was injured and received medical attention, police said on X. 

GERMAN POLICE PREPARE FOR LARGEST DEPLOYMENT EVER AHEAD OF EURO 2024 AS SOCCER VIOLENCE SURGES

The department afterward announced a “major police operation” underway, adding the event at Heiligengeistfeld “is subject to various security checks and is well protected.” 

“We are currently assuming that there was a lone perpetrator,” police added. 

The incident happened around the same time as the Dutch fan parade. Nearly 40,000 soccer fans were marching through the entertainment district, according to German state broadcaster DW. 

The suspect reportedly walked out of a bar and began waving an ax in a “threatening manner.” Officers opened fire after the man refused to lay down the ax, hitting him in the leg, German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported, citing Hamburg Police. German media published images of a person lying in the street surrounded by paramedics and police officers.

A view of the Volkspark Stadium ahead of the European Soccer Championships 2024 in Hamburg, Germany, May 14, 2024.  (Christian Charisius/dpa via AP, File)

“According to current knowledge, there is no football connection,” a police spokesman told the outlet. The motive was not immediately announced. 

EUROPEAN VOTERS REJECT SOCIALISM, FAR-LEFT POLICIES IN EU PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS: ‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’

German authorities have put police on high alert during the tournament, which began Friday and runs through July 14, for fear of possible fan violence and terrorist attacks.

Police officers walk on a sidewalk next to an apartment building in Wolmirstedt, Germany, Saturday, June 15, 2024. German police say they shot to death an Afghan man after he fatally attacked a compatriot and later wounded three people watching the televised Euro 2024 soccer tournament.  (Thomas Schulz/dpa via AP)

On Friday, police shot to death a 27-year-old Afghan national after he fatally attacked a 23-year-old compatriot with a “knife-like object” and later wounded three people watching the televised game between Germany and Scotland in Wolmirstedt, a small town about 80 miles west of Berlin. 

Police said Sunday the motive for that attack was still unclear. 

The Interior Ministry in Saxony-Anhalt state, which includes Wolmirstedt, said police had increased their presence across the state.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More than 4,000 people have marched through Brussels in protest against the political right and racism.

Organised by the Anti-fascist Coordination of Belgium (CAB) the march brought together around 20 social movements and organisations.

It’s the second major march in the Belgian capital denouncing the far-right since the EU elections on June 9th which saw right and far-right parties winning big.

“This march is important today to show a message of hope in the face of the messages of despair that the far right wants to bring us,” said CAB member Sixtine Van Outryve.

“It’s important to show that we’re in solidarity with everyone, whatever their nationality, whatever they earn, whatever they do. We stand together and we want a society that doesn’t divide us. A society that doesn’t exclude, a society that isn’t racist or sexist.”

“Many of us were shocked by the election results, showing far-right breakthroughs at the European level,” Van Outryve said, expressing concern about what she called an “alarming” trend towards the normalisation of far-right discourse.

Right and far-right parties scored big in the EU elections with the most dramatic result coming in France. Marine le Pen’s National Rally took first place in the polls with more than 31% of the vote, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and call snap elections.

In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy bagged the most votes (28.7%) while in Germany, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) surged to second place, knocking Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats into third.

There were also victories for right-leaning and populist parties in Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.

Demonstrators in Brussels were keen to show that the rise of the far-right wasn’t “inevitable” and that it was important to confront it by building social and democratic alternatives.

“We’re going to show them that young people aren’t entirely seduced by far right and that the majority of us continue to fight against their ideas,” said a 17-year-old protester called Henri.

Apple, or at least its technology, was worried about the health and well-being of Hollywood’s greatest director.

In the middle of Steven Spielberg‘s Tribeca Festival talk on Saturday, where the filmmaker was celebrating the 50th anniversary of his debut feature, “The Sugarland Express,” he was interrupted by his Apple watch with a message that read “It looks like you’ve taken a hard fall.” Spielberg jokingly said “I’m not going to press the SOS [button]” before throwing it on the ground. “I’ll pick it up later,” he said, only to retrieve it a few minutes later when it started issuing some sort of distress signal.

Before the Q&A began, a taped message from “The Sugarland Express” star Goldie Hawn appeared on the screen, thanking Spielberg and reminiscing about the pivotal moment in her career—and his. The film was released in 1974, just one year before “Jaws,” and even though it received good reviews, Universal pulled it from theaters after two weeks because of lackluster box office results. “You’re the first audience to ever see ‘Sugarland Express’ in 50 years,” Spielberg said to a packed audience at the BMCC in Lower West Side Manhattan.

The three-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker told moderator and Variety Executive Editor Brent Lang that he was inspired to make the movie after reading an article with the headline “Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde” in a local Los Angeles Valley newspaper, The Citizens News. “It was the story of this couple in Texas, Bobby and Ila Fae Dent who, in order to get their baby back from child welfare, led a multi-car police chase through Texas, and it just seemed like an incredible story,” Spielberg said. He then sent the article to his friends Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins and asked them if they wanted to work together and write a script.

But Universal wasn’t going to finance the film without a big star’s name above the title. “The movie wouldn’t have gotten made without her,” Spielberg said. Beyond her bankability, Spielberg felt that Hawn was a great fit for the role of Lou Jean Poplin, one of the naive cop car hijackers. “There was an element of the character, a bucolic element, that reminded me of the simplicity of Goldie’s heart,” he said.

However, filling out the rest of the ensemble inspired Spielberg and his casting director Shari Rhodes to look much farther afield from Hollywood. “I said to Shari, ‘Can you get some real people to be in this movie? Why does everybody have to be an actor? Why can’t you go into a bar and find Buster Daniels? Find a drunk for me,’” Spielberg joked. “She went into a bar, and she pulled this old guy out.” And he ended up being the well-lubricated passenger in the backseat when Hawn and her on-screen husband Clovis (played by William Atherton) steal a cop car and take a patrolman (Michael Sacks) hostage.

Since most of the film takes place in a car that is being followed by a caravan of police cars, news trucks, lookie-loos and well-wishers, Lang asked Spielberg if he thought of the movie during the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase. “I did! I did!” Spielberg replied. “I said, ‘Shit, they’re stealing my thunder!’”

“Sugarland Express” was also the beginning of his legendary collaborations with composer John Williams, and the pair have since worked together on “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List” and many more. “I had been such a rabid fan of John’s scores, I used to collect soundtrack albums since I was a kid,” Spielberg said. “I vowed that if I ever get a chance to make a feature film, whoever this, I assumed he was British, guy John Williams, I want him to be the one to score it.”

He continued, “When ‘Sugarland’ was a reality…one of the first people I got in touch with was John. We met and had lunch and that was the beginning of…this is our 51st year working together.” To which the audience cheered.

Working on “Sugarland Express” with producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown led him to work with them again on “Jaws.”

“They had the galleys of this book in their office just sitting out called ‘Jaws’ I didn’t know what it was I was intrigued, and I went over to the assistant of Dick and I said, ‘Can I read this?’” Spielberg said. “I read it over the weekend and I was floored by it. I asked him if they would consider having me direct this, and there had already been a director assigned to it. Then about a month later when that didn’t work out they offered me the movie.”

In a year, when “Jaws” took a bite out of the box office, everyone would know Spielberg’s name and he’d be no one’s second choice to direct a movie about a shark, some dinosaurs or all manner of visitors from outer space.

Bonus trivia: The baby that Hawn and Atherton are trying to reunite with is played by Zanuck’s son, Harrison.