iStock/Thinkstock(LIEGE, Belgium) — Two policewomen were among three people killed in Belgium on Tuesday when a man stabbed them, took their guns and shot them in what authorities have since deemed a terror attack.
The third victim was a 22-year-old passenger in a car fired on by the suspect, near a school in Liege, about 60 miles east of Brussels, authorities said.
Police later shot and killed the gunman, who first fled into a nearby college, took a female hostage and was flushed out of the building by police. No students were harmed.
Two police sources told ABC News the assailant was named Benjamin Herman, a Belgian national known to police as someone who was radicalized in prison.
The Belgium federal prosecutor’s office told ABC news earlier on Tuesday it was taking over the investigation from a local Liege prosecutor because “there are elements that make us believe that it was a terror attack.”
Belgium remains on high alert — 2 on a scale of 1-4 — following a 2016 attack killed 32.
After the shooting on Tuesday, the nation’s interior minister said via Twitter: “Our thoughts are with the victims of this horrible act. We are currently working on determining what happened precisely.”
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