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A gunman opened hearth on a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Hamburg killing six folks, together with a pregnant lady, and wounding eight others earlier than turning his weapon on himself as police stormed the constructing in what the authorities on Friday known as “the worst such mass capturing incident of this dimension” to have an effect on the town.
The authorities in Hamburg, in northern Germany, stated that the gunman had fled to an higher ground because the police arrived on Thursday evening earlier than turning his gun on himself. 4 males and two ladies have been killed within the assault. One of many ladies was pregnant, and her 7-month-old fetus didn’t survive, the authorities stated.
“It’s a horrific act — and it’s a horrifying act,” Andy Grote, senator of the inside for the city-state of Hamburg, stated. Mass shootings are extraordinarily uncommon in Germany, which has comparatively strict gun management legal guidelines, and Mr. Grote described the assault as “the worst crime within the current historical past of our metropolis.”
Cops responding to the primary emergency calls entered the constructing as they heard photographs ringing out from inside, the authorities stated at a information convention on Friday. They noticed injured folks on the bottom and noticed a person with a gun run to an higher ground of the constructing.
They then moved to isolate the gunman, an method that prevented others among the many roughly 50 folks gathered within the constructing from being killed, stated Matthias Tresp, the chief of police in Hamburg.
In step with German privateness legal guidelines, the police recognized the gunman solely as Philip F., a 35-year-old German who, in keeping with the authorities, had acted on his personal out of a “particular rage” towards spiritual teams. There was no indication that he had been motivated by terrorism, and he had not beforehand been identified to the police, stated Ralf Peter Anders, a prosecutor.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses, a denomination based in the USA within the nineteenth century, has been energetic in Germany since 1902. They make up a comparatively small spiritual neighborhood of about 175,000 adherents in Germany, which is dwelling to just about 900 devoted “kingdom halls,” because the group calls its locations of worship.
Persecuted by the Nazis and punctiliously watched by the Communist secret police within the former East Germany, the group struggled for many years to be given equal standing to Germany’s different spiritual communities. That was granted beginning in Berlin in 2005.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who beforehand served as mayor of Hamburg, and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier have been amongst those that provided their condolences within the wake of the capturing.
In an announcement, the Jehovah’s Witnesses group in Germany stated, “The spiritual neighborhood is deeply saddened by the horrific assault on its members in a kingdom corridor in Hamburg after a church service.”
The primary calls concerning the capturing have been made to the police at 9:15 p.m. Residents within the space, a usually quiet neighborhood in northern Hamburg, stated that that they had been surprised to listen to photographs ringing out from the constructing the place the spiritual neighborhood met.
“I beginning filming with my cellphone, and thru the zoom, I may decide that somebody was capturing,” Gregor Miebach, a pupil who lives throughout from the corridor, advised the German tv channel N-TV. “There have been not less than 25 photographs that I heard.”
A particular police unit occurred to be within the space and arrived inside minutes, the authorities stated, including that officers discovered wounded folks once they entered the constructing and started working their means up via its three flooring.
“After the police arrived, there have been no photographs for some time,” Mr. Miebach stated. “After about 5 minutes, there was one single shot.”
Strict rules in Germany restrict who can personal a weapon, they usually require coaching and testing earlier than a gun could be bought.
Philip F., the gunman within the capturing on Thursday, obtained his gun license in 2020 and had legally acquired his weapon, the authorities stated.
Three years in the past, a 43-year-old German posted a racist video and screed on the web earlier than driving to bars and golf equipment frequented by younger folks from Turkish and Kurdish households which have lived in Germany for generations and opening fire, killing nine.
The gunman in that case had additionally acquired his weapon legally.
In Germany, hunters, goal shooters and individuals who can show that they’re underneath risk can apply for a gun license. Each medical and felony historical past is taken under consideration earlier than such licenses are granted.
In December, the German police raided the houses of a community of far-right extremists who the authorities stated had plans to overthrow the government. After that, the German inside minister, Nancy Faeser, stated that she would search to tighten legal guidelines to make it tougher to amass automated weapons. There was no fast proof to recommend the far proper was concerned within the assault on Thursday evening.
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