HAMBURG
\nA gunman believed to have been acting alone killed several people on Thursday in a Jehovah\u2019s Witness church in the German city of Hamburg, police said, as they focused their investigation on the motive for the attack.
\nPolice declined to say how many people had been killed but said the gunman was believed to be among the dead.
\nThe Bild newspaper reported that seven people were dead and eight wounded in the shooting at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah\u2019s Witness in the northern city that is home to Germany\u2019s biggest port.
\n\u201cAccording to the current state of affairs, we assume that there is one perpetrator,\u201d police said in a message on Twitter.
\n\u201cPolice activities in the surrounding area are being successively discontinued. Investigations into the motives behind the crime are continuing.\u201d
\nEarlier, Germany\u2019s DPA news agency, citing a reporter on the scene, said that residents in the city\u2019s northern Alsterdorf district had received warnings on their mobile phones of a \u201clife threatening situation\u201d and that streets had been sealed off.
\nTelevision 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 into a bus.
\n\u201cWe heard shots,\u201d one unidentified witness told reporters. \u201cThere were 12 continuous shots,\u201d he said. \u201cThen we saw how people were taken away in black bags.\u201d
\nPolice said they had received a call soon after 9 pm and officers arrived at the scene to find several people seriously injured and some dead.
\n\u201cThen they heard a shot from above, they went upstairs and found one further person,\u201d said a police spokesperson.
\nGermany 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.
\nIn 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.
\nThe mayor of Hamburg expressed shock for Thursday\u2019s bloodshed.
\n\u201cI 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,\u201d Peter Tschentscher said on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HAMBURG A gunman believed to have been acting alone killed several people on Thursday in a Jehovah\u2019s Witness church in the German city of Hamburg, police said, as they focused their investigation on the motive for the attack. Police declined to say how many people had been killed but said the gunman was believed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-318748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n