Germany in shock: police establish motives
Germany in shock: a massacre in Hamburg, Germany, killed several people at the hands of an attacker. A suspect who allegedly acted alone has been found dead.
A shooting was staged at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses (in Russia, this religious organization is recognized as extremist and banned) in the German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, resulting in several deaths, and police officials said they believed the attacker acted alone.
Six or seven people are reported dead and at least seven injured, CNN affiliate RTL/NTV says. For its part, the Bild newspaper reported that seven people were killed and another 25 were injured, of which eight were seriously injured. It is unclear if the attacker was included in the death toll. Police said several people were seriously injured but declined to say how many people died, Reuters reported.
The incident in the northern German city took place around 9 pm local time on Thursday, and police were initially unsure how many shooters might have been involved in the attack.
But later reports from the city police revealed that the attacker was only one, and he may have died at the scene, notes CNN.
“We currently believe there is only one perpetrator,” the Hamburg police said in their latest Twitter update, hours after as armed police combed the scene for clues and suspects.
“All police activities in the vicinity are consistently stopped. The investigation into the circumstances of the crime is ongoing,” law enforcement said in a statement.
A police spokesman previously said authorities were investigating whether the shooter’s body was among several people found dead at the scene.
“We only know that several people died here; several people were injured and were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Wehren said of the shooting in the Gross-Borstel district of Germany’s second largest city.
After the police were called to the attacked building, law enforcement officials saw of dead and injured people on the ground floor where the event took place, Hamburg police spokesman Holger Veren told NTV.
The police also heard a gunshot on the top floor of the building when they first entered it and found a dead man at the top. Police believe it could be the shooter, but said no further information could be provided at this time, a spokesman said.
Police reportedly did not have to use their firearms.
Films from the scene showed numerous armed policemen in and around the Kingdom Hall as a helicopter flew overhead. A bomb disposal team was deployed at one location.
The scene of the shooting was the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, a modern square three-story building next to an auto repair shop, according to the Associated Press.
When news of the shooting broke, Hamburg police said a major operation was underway in the city's Grossborstel district. Several streets were closed and the public was warned by text messages to avoid the area. Locals have been told to stay at home and only use their phones “as a last resort” so as not to overload the network.
An unnamed witness said he heard gunshots. “There were 12 continuous shots… then we saw people being taken away in black bags,” he told German media.
Student Laura Bauch, who lives nearby, said «there were about four periods of shooting,» German news agency dpa reported. “During these periods, several shots were fired, approximately at intervals of 20 seconds to a minute,” says a witness to the tragedy. She said that she looked out of her window and saw a man running from the first floor to the second floor of the hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Gregor Miesbach, who lives nearby, was alarmed by the sounds of gunfire and noticed a figure entering the building through a window. Then shots were heard from inside. Later, a figure that an eyewitness managed to film appears to come out of the hall, is seen in the courtyard, and then fires several more shots inside. Miesbach told the German television news agency NonstopNews that he had heard at least 25 shots. According to him, after the arrival of the police, about five minutes later, the last shot followed. His video, posted online by the Bild newspaper, shows the man firing several shots at the building through a ground-floor window before the lights went out.
The police had no information about the event that was taking place in the building when the shooting occurred. Law enforcement agencies also do not yet have direct information about the possible motive for the attack. A police spokesman says «the backstory is still completely unclear.»
Streets around the place of worship have been cordoned off and police have previously issued warnings of «extreme danger» in the area, the spokesman added.
“There is no confirmed information about the motive for the crime,” the police said on Twitter, urging people not to share any unconfirmed assumptions. “The investigation is ongoing,” the department added.
Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschencher expressed his «deepest sympathy» to the families of the victims, calling the reports of the incident «shocking» on Twitter.
“My deepest condolences to the families of the victims. Emergency services are working at full speed to pursue the perpetrator(s),” he wrote.
As the Associated Press recalls, Jehovah's Witnesses are part of an international church founded in the United States in the 19th century and headquartered in Warwick, New York. This organization claims that its members around the world are about 8.7 million people, including about 170 thousand in Germany. Church members are known for their evangelistic efforts, which include, among other things, the distribution of literature in public squares. Distinctive customs of the denomination include refusing to carry weapons, donate blood, salute the national flag, or participate in secular government. Recall that in Russia the organization was recognized as extremist and banned.
Shooting incidents in Germany are not unheard of, although they happen less often than in the United States, CNN notes. For example, in January 2022, at least one person was killed after a man opened fire on students in a lecture hall at Heidelberg University in southwestern Germany. In February 2020, a far-right extremist shot dead 10 people and wounded five more in the central German city of Hanau. And in 2019, two people were killed after a neo-Nazi attempted to storm a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.