Denmark attacks: 'We have tasted the ugly taste of fear,' Prime Minister says.

A wary, sucker-punched Denmark kept a high alert Sunday after a gunman attacked a free speech forum featuring a controversial cartoonist, then fired shots near a synagogue before police tracked him down and killed him when he opened fire again.Two civilians died in the attacks Saturday and early Sunday. Five police officers were wounded, according to Danish authorities.

While the immediate threat seemed to have passed, and investigators stressed there was no evidence yet that the slain suspect had worked with anyone else, police maintained a heavy presence on Copenhagen's normally placid streets. It will stay that way for a while, Danish authorities said, to help residents and visitors feel secure.As of Sunday night, police still hadn't released the name of the gunman, who they said was wearing clothes similar to the synagogue shooter and had two guns when officers shot him to death early Sunday.

olice did say in a statement that the suspected shooter was a 22-year-old man born in Denmark. He was "well-known by the police for several criminal incidents," according to police.Those incidents include weapons violations and violence, according to police, who said he also was "known in connection to gangs."

Carsten Ellegaard Christensen, a national security reporter at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, provided additional details on the suspect, citing sources with detailed knowledge of the investigation.

Christensen was told the dead gunman was Danish-Arab, living in Copenhagen, and was on the radar of authorities for gang activity, not for suspected Islamist extremism. So far as police know, he had not traveled to Syria or Iraq.

The gunman was recently in jail after being convicted of stabbing another young man with a knife several times on board a commuter train, Christensen said. The man survived.

Inspired by Charlie Hebdo attack?

They say they have no evidence he worked with anyone else, but are "operating under a theory" that he may have been inspired by the January terror attack in France, according to Jens Madsen, chief of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service.

Seventeen people died in the Paris attack, which began with an assault on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The magazine had published images of the Prophet Mohammed.

In this weekend's attacks, police identified the suspect from surveillance footage that shows him getting into a taxi after the first shooting, Copenhagen police investigator Jorgen Skov said.

Copenhagen police released this photo of a man in connection with Saturday's terror attack."By interviewing the taxi driver, we got the address where he dropped off the person," Skov said. "We have been keeping that address under observation."He said when officers tried to contact the suspect at the Copenhagen apartment early Sunday, the suspect opened fire. Police fired back, killing the gunman.

No officers were injured.

In light of the attacks, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said the country would have to come up with new solutions to the threat of extremism.

"As a nation, we have experienced a series of hours we will never forget," she said Sunday."We have tasted the ugly taste of fear and powerlessness that terror would like to create. But we have also, as a society, answered back."

News Curtesy: www.cnn.com