Seven people have been killed and several others injured in a shooting at a meeting hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the German city of Hamburg, police say.
They say the gunman acted alone in Thursday’s attack, and is believed to be dead. His motives are unknown.
Dramatic footage has now emerged showing the suspect firing several rounds through a hall window.
The suspect is a former member of a religious community, aged between 30 and 40, reports JEE News.
The victims have yet to be identified, and the scene remains under investigation.
Police say they have found a dead man at the scene who they believe may be the culprit.
Police spokesman Holger Wehren said they were called at around 21:15 local time (20:15 GMT) on Thursday to reports that shots had been fired at a building on Delboj Street, in the Gross Borstal district.
He said officers who went inside found people with “possible serious gunshot wounds, some fatal”.
“Officers also heard gunshots coming from the top of the building and went upstairs, where they also found one person. So far we’ve had no indication that the perpetrators escaped.”
It is believed that the people had gathered, possibly for a Bible study, when the shooting started at around 21:00 local time.
Gregor Mesbach, who filmed the gunman shooting from a first-floor window, told JEE News: “I didn’t realize what was happening. I was filming with my phone, and only with zoom. It felt like someone was shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness.
“I heard loud gunshots … I saw a man with a firearm and filmed him shooting through the window,” he said.
Lara Bauch, a 23-year-old student who lives nearby, told JEE News that “there were about four gunshots – each with several shots – about 20 seconds to a minute apart”.
She said that from her window she could see a man running from the ground floor to the first floor. “The man was wearing black clothes and was moving fast,” he added.
At around 21:00 local time, an alert was sent to the federal warning app, NINAwarn, telling locals that “one or more unknown assailants opened fire on people in the church”.
During the ongoing police operation, local residents were asked not to leave their homes.
Footage shows police escorting people out of the meeting hall, some to ambulances.
Hamburg Interior Minister Andy Grote said on Twitter that special police units and a large number of officers had been deployed to the scene.
The reasons behind the shooting were “still completely unclear”.
German Chancellor Olaf Schulz called it a “brutal act of violence” on Friday morning, saying his thoughts were with the victims and their families.
In a statement, the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany said it was “deeply saddened by the horrific attack on its members after religious worship at the Kingdom Hall in Hamburg”.
Forensic experts in white suits worked the interior of the meeting house throughout the night.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are members of a Christian-based religious movement that originated in the United States in the late 19th century.
In its latest report for 2022, the movement says there are about 8.7 million Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, including about 170,000 in Germany.
In the city of Hamburg, the organization is believed to have around 4,000 members.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are perhaps best known for their door-to-door evangelism work. Witnessing from house to house and offering Bible literature.
Although Christian-based, the group believes that traditional Christian churches have deviated from the true teachings of the Bible, and do not work in full harmony with God.
Germany has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe, including a provision that anyone under the age of 25 must pass a psychological evaluation before obtaining a gun license.
According to the National Firearms Registry, in 2021, there were approximately one million private gun owners in Germany. They have 5.7 million legal firearms and firearm parts, most of which are owned by hunters.
German authorities are planning to further tighten the country’s gun laws after mass arrests last December in connection with a suspected coup plot.
