Eight killed, including gunman, at Jehovah's Witness hall shooting in
Germany
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[March 10, 2023]
By Fabian Bimmer
HAMBURG (Reuters) - Eight people were killed and others were wounded in
a shooting at a Jehovah's Witness place of worship in the German city of
Hamburg and the gunman was among the dead, police said on Friday.
In a statement on Twitter, police said they believed there to be one
perpetrator in the Thursday evening attack and were investigating
motives.
The gunman appeared to have been a former member of the Jehovah's
Witness community, Spiegel magazine reported. The man was aged between
30 and 40 and was not known to authorities as an extremist, the report
said, citing unnamed sources.
A spokesperson for Hamburg police could not confirm the details,
referring to a news conference planned for later in the morning.
Police received a call soon after 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday and
officers arrived at the scene to find several people seriously injured
and some dead.
"Then they heard a shot from above, they went upstairs and found one
further person," said a police spokesperson.
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The Bild newspaper reported that eight people were wounded in the
shooting in Hamburg, which is Germany's second most populous city and
home to the country's biggest port.
Mobile phone footage recorded by a resident across the street from the
Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall in the Alsterdorf district of the city
showed a person outside the building shooting in through a window.
"I heard loud gunshots," said the witness, who declined to give his
name. "I saw a man shooting at a window with a firearm."
Reuters could not immediately establish how the gunman died.
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Emergency workers and police gather at
the scene following a deadly shooting in Hamburg, Germany, March 9,
2023 in this still image taken from video. NONSTOP NEWS via Reuters
TV/Handout via REUTERS
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Television footage showed dozens of police cars as well as fire
engines blocking off streets and some people, wrapped in blankets,
being led by emergency service workers onto a bus.
"We heard shots," one unidentified witness told reporters. "There
were 12 continuous shots," he said. "Then we saw how people were
taken away in black bags."
Germany has been shaken by a number of shootings in the last few
years. In February 2020, a gunman with suspected far-right links
shot dead nine people, including migrants from Turkey, in the
western town of Hanau before killing himself and his mother.
In October 2019, a gunman killed two people when he opened fire
outside a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle on the Jewish holy
day of Yom Kippur.
The mayor of Hamburg expressed shock at Thursday's bloodshed.
"I extend my deepest sympathy to the families of the victims. The
forces are working at full speed to pursue the perpetrators and
clarify the background," Peter Tschentscher said on Twitter.
(Reporting by Madeline Chambers, Sabine Wollrab, Emma-Victoria Farr,
Reuters Television; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Robert
Birsel, Nick Macfie and Frances Kerry)
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