A shooting at a free speech event featuring an artist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad and a second shooting hours later outside a synagogue left two dead and five police officers wounded in Copenhagen, the BBC reported.
Police couldn't say whether the shootings at a cultural center Saturday afternoon and in front of the synagogue early Sunday were connected, but didn't rule it out. In both shootings, the gunman got away.
"We are looking for two perpetrators," police spokesman Allan Wadsworth-Hansen told reporters.
The first shooting happened shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday. Danish police said the gunman used an automatic weapon to shoot through the windows of the Krudttoenden cultural center during a panel discussion on freedom of expression following the Paris attacks.
A 55-year-old man attending the event was killed, while three police officers were wounded. Two belonged to the Danish security service PET, which said the circumstances surrounding the shooting "indicate that we are talking about a terror attack."
The gunman then fled in a carjacked Volkswagen Polo that was found later a few kilometers (miles) away, police said.
Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist who has faced numerous death threats for caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad, was one of the main speakers at the event, titled "Art, blasphemy and freedom of expression." He was whisked away by his bodyguards unharmed as the shooting began.
Vilks, 68, said he believed he was the intended target of the shooting.
"What other motive could there be? It's possible it was inspired by Charlie Hebdo," he said, referring to the Jan. 7 attack by Islamic extremists on the French newspaper that had angered Muslims by lampooning Muhammad.