Eight persons were killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witnesses hall in Hamburg, Germany, reportedly including the shooter, authorities announced on Friday. Unknown numbers of additional people suffered injuries, some of them critically.
An explanation for the shooting on Thursday night that shocked Germany’s second-largest city is yet unknown. Former Hamburg mayor and current chancellor Olaf Scholz called the shooting “a horrific act of violence.”
Throughout the evening, police stated that they thought there was just one shooter, who might have been one of the people who had been discovered dead within the structure.
To gather evidence, investigators toiled through the night. As a light snowfall fell outside the building on Friday morning, forensic investigators dressed in protective white coats could still be seen. Police marked evidence with yellow cones by placing them on the floor and on window sills.
An informational press conference will be held on Friday at noon, according to Hamburg officials.
In an early Friday email, Jehovah’s Witnesses spokesperson David Semonian stated that members “globally weep for the victims of this tragic act.”
He stated, “The congregation elders in the neighborhood are offering pastoral care for people impacted by the occurrence. “We are aware that the police are still looking into the specifics of this incident. We value the selfless assistance provided by the emergency services and police.
The shooting took place inside the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall, a boxy, three-story structure next to an auto repair shop in the Gross Borstel neighborhood, a few miles (kilometers) outside of Hamburg’s central business center.
According to police spokesman Holger Vehren, officers were swiftly dispatched to the area after being informed of the gunshot around 9:15 p.m. (2015 GMT).
He claimed that after authorities came and saw persons on the main floor with what seemed to be gunshot wounds, they heard a shot from an upper floor and discovered a mortally injured person who may have been the shooter upstairs. He claimed that cops were not required to deploy their weapons.
According to student Laura Bauch, who lives close, there were roughly four intervals of firing, according to the German news agency dpa. There were typically many shots during these times, spaced from 20 to 60 seconds apart, according to the witness.
According to Bauch, she noticed a figure racing from the Jehovah’s Witnesses hall’s first floor to the second floor as she peered out of her window.
Shots were heard by Gregor Miesbach, who lives nearby, and caught a man entering the building through a window on camera. Then, shots can be heard inside. Afterward, it appears that the figure exits the hallway, is seen in the courtyard, and then fires additional bullets through a first-floor window before the lights in the room went out.
Miesbach reported hearing at least 25 gunshots to the German television news source NonstopNews. Around five minutes after the cops came, there was one final shot, the witness claimed.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses belong to a multinational church with its main office in Warwick, New York, and was established in the United States in the 19th century. It claims to have 8.7 million members globally, including 170,000 in Germany.
Members are well renowned for their door-to-door evangelism and book distribution in public places. One of the denomination’s distinguishing customs is its rejection of blood transfusions, national flag salutes, the right to bear arms, and participation in secular governance.
In recent years, there have been a number of shootings in Germany:
