Germany: shooting occurred at Jehovah’s Witness hall

• According to reports, 6 dead and a number of people injured in shooting.
• According to police, the gunman acted alone and is presumed dead.
• Police discovered a dead person at the scene who they believe was a perpetrator.

A number of people were killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness meeting hall in Hamburg, Germany.

According to police, the gunman acted alone and is presumed dead. It is unclear whether the attacker is one of the six or seven people killed, as reported by German media.

As yet, “there is no reliable information on the motive”, police say.

The shooting on Deelböge street in the city’s Gross Borstel district also injured several people.

Police say they discovered a dead person at the scene who they believe was a perpetrator, and that their investigation is ongoing.

Police were called around 21:15 (20:15 GMT) to reports of shots fired in the building, according to police spokesman Holger Vehren.

Officers who went in found people who “may have been seriously injured by firearms, some of them fatally”, he said.

“The officers also heard a shot from the upper part of the building and went upstairs, where they also found a person. So far we have no indications that any perpetrators fled.”

He stated that police had not yet identified the victims and that work at the crime scene was ongoing.

“All we know is that several people have died here, several people have been injured, they have been taken to hospitals,” Mr Vehren said.

The reasons behind the shooting were “still completely unclear”.

An alert was sent on the federal warning app, NINAwarn, at around 21:00 (20:00 GMT) telling locals that “one or more unknown perpetrators shot at people in a church”.

Residents in the area were told not to leave their homes while the police operation was ongoing.

Footage showed police escorting people out of the meeting hall, some of whom were being taken to ambulances.

Andy Grote, the Interior Minister of Hamburg, announced on Twitter that police special forces and a large number of officers had been dispatched to the scene.

The police have urged the public not to make assumptions or spread rumours.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian-based religious organisation.

The denomination was founded in the United States near the end of the nineteenth century by Charles Taze Russell. The movement’s headquarters are in New York.

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