Six dead in shooting at Hamburg [Germany] Jehovah’s Witness center: local media

A deadly shooting erupted at a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall in in Hamburg on Thursday evening, leaving several dead, according to police.

At least six people are dead and seven people injured, CNN affiliate RTL/NTV reported.

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"We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals," police spokesman Holger Vehren said.

Vehren said police were alerted to the shooting about 9:15 p.m. and were on the scene quickly.

He said that after officers arrived and found people with apparent gunshot wounds on the ground floor, they heard a shot from an upper floor and found a fatally wounded person upstairs who may have been a shooter. He said police did not have to use their firearms.

Vehren said there was no indication that a shooter was on the run and that it appeared likely that the perpetrator was either in the building or among the dead.

disciple Clint said:

The German system of gun control is among the most stringent in Europe. Gun Laws in Germany - German Culture

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Fortunately, no guns were harmed in this incident, so far as I know.

A gunman stormed a service at his former Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation in Hamburg, killing six people before taking his own life after police arrived, authorities in the German port city said Friday.

Police gave no motive for Thursday night’s attack, which stunned Germany’s second-biggest city. But they acknowledged having recently received an anonymous tip that claimed the man showed anger toward religious groups and might be psychologically unfit to own a gun.

Officers apparently reached the hall while the attack was ongoing — and heard one more shot after they arrived, according to witnesses and authorities. They did not fire their weapons, but officials said their intervention likely prevented further loss of life.

Officials said the gunman was a 35-year-old German national identified only as Philipp F., in line with the country’s privacy rules. Police said the suspect had left the congregation “voluntarily but apparently not on good terms” about a year and a half ago.

The man legally owned a semiautomatic Heckler & Koch Pistole P30 pistol, [another satisfied H&K customer!] according to police. He fired more than 100 shots during the attack — and the head of the Hamburg prosecutors office, Ralf Peter Anders, said hundreds more rounds were found in a search of the man’s apartment.

Hamburg police chief Ralf Martin Meyer said the man was visited by police after they received an anonymous tip in January alleging that he “bore particular anger toward religious believers, in particular toward Jehovah’s Witnesses and his former employer.”

[Police saw no red flags themselves.]