Hamburg shooting: Fatalities at Jehovah’s Witness hall

BERLIN –

Shots were fired inside a building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, and an unspecified number of people were killed or injured, police said.

The shooting took place in the Grosse Borstel district, a few kilometers north of the central district of Germany’s second largest city.

“We only know that several people died here. several people are injured, they were taken to hospitals,” said police representative Holger Wehren.

He said that he had no information about the seriousness of the injuries received by the injured.

Local media footage showed a heavy police presence outside the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a modern three-story building.

Wehren said police were called to the shooting at 9:15 p.m. and quickly responded to the scene. He said after police arrived, they heard gunshots upstairs and found a man upstairs who may have been the shooter. He said the police did not have to use their firearms.

Wehren said there were no immediate indications the shooter was on the run and that it was likely the perpetrator or perpetrators were in the building or among the dead.

The police had no information about the event that took place in the building when the shooting occurred.

They also had no immediate information on a possible motive. Wehren said “the background is still completely unclear.”

The mayor of Hamburg, Peter Schentscher, wrote on his Twitter page that the news was “shocking” and expressed his condolences to the relatives of the victims.