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BERLIN — Pictures have been fired inside a constructing utilized by Jehovah’s Witnesses within the northern German metropolis of Hamburg on Thursday night, with a number of folks killed and wounded, police stated.
“We solely know that a number of folks died right here; a number of individuals are wounded, they have been taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren stated of the capturing within the Gross Borstel district of Germany’s second-biggest metropolis.
He stated he had no info on the severity of the accidents suffered by the wounded. Police didn’t verify German media stories, which named no sources, of six or seven lifeless.
In a Twitter replace within the early hours Friday Hamburg police stated they believed there was just one shooter, and so they have been regularly rolling again safety forces from the world.
“The investigation into the motive behind the crime continues,” police stated.
The scene of the capturing was the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Corridor, a contemporary and boxy three-story constructing subsequent door to an auto restore store.
Vehren stated police have been alerted to the capturing about 9:15 p.m. and have been on the scene shortly.
He stated that after officers arrived and located folks with obvious gunshot wounds on the bottom ground, they heard a shot from an higher ground and located a fatally wounded individual upstairs who could 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 seemingly that the perpetrator was both within the constructing or among the many lifeless.
Pupil Laura Bauch, who lives close by, stated “there have been about 4 intervals of capturing,” German information company dpa reported. “There have been all the time a number of photographs in these intervals, roughly at intervals of 20 seconds to a minute,” she stated.
She stated she regarded out her window and noticed an individual operating from the bottom ground to the second ground of the Jehovah’s Witnesses corridor.
Gregor Miesbach, who lives within reach of the constructing, was alerted by the sound of photographs and filmed a determine coming into the constructing by way of a window. Pictures can then be heard from inside. The determine later apparently emerges from the corridor, is seen within the courtyard after which fires extra photographs inside.
Miesbach informed German tv information company NonstopNews that he heard not less than 25 photographs. After police arrived, one final shot adopted about 5 minutes later, he stated.
Police had no info on the occasion that was underneath approach within the constructing when the capturing befell.
Additionally they had no rapid info on a attainable motive. Vehren stated that “the background remains to be utterly unclear.”
Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher tweeted that the information was “surprising” and supplied his sympathy to the victims’ family members.
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 recognized 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.
