Pictures had been fired inside a constructing utilized by Jehovah’s Witnesses within the northern German metropolis of Hamburg on Thursday night, and several other individuals had been killed or wounded, police stated.
The taking pictures occurred within the Gross Borstel district, just a few kilometers (miles) north of the downtown space of Germany’s second-biggest metropolis.
“We solely know that a number of individuals died right here; a number of individuals are wounded, they had been taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren stated.
He stated he had no data on the severity of the accidents suffered by the wounded.
The scene of the taking pictures was the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Corridor, a contemporary and boxy three-story constructing subsequent door to an auto restore store.
Vehren stated police had been alerted to the taking pictures about 9:15 p.m. and had been on the scene rapidly.
He stated that after officers arrived and located individuals with obvious gunshot wounds on the bottom flooring, they heard a shot from an higher flooring and located a fatally wounded particular person upstairs who might have been a shooter. He stated police didn’t have to make use of their firearms.
Vehren stated there was no indication {that a} shooter was on the run and that it appeared doubtless that the perpetrator was both within the constructing or among the many useless.
Two witnesses interviewed on n-tv tv, whose names weren’t given, stated they heard 12 photographs.
Police had no data on the occasion that was below method within the constructing when the taking pictures occurred.
Additionally they had no quick data on a potential motive. Vehren stated that “the background remains to be utterly unclear.”
Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher tweeted that the information was “stunning” and provided his sympathy to the victims’ kinfolk.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a part of a world church, based in america within the nineteenth century and headquartered in Warwick, New York. It claims a worldwide membership of about 8.7 million, with about 170,000 in Germany.
Members are identified for his or her evangelistic efforts that embrace knocking on doorways and distributing literature in public squares. The denomination’s distinctive practices embrace a refusal to bear arms, obtain blood transfusions, salute a nationwide flag or take part in secular authorities.