Details of the execution in Hamburg: “People were taken away in black bags”

Germany is in shock: the police are establishing the motive

Germany is in shock: as a result of a massacre in Hamburg, Germany, several people died at the hands of the attacker. The suspect, who allegedly acted alone, was found dead.

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The shooting took place at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses (in Russia, this religious organization is recognized as extremist and banned) in the German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, leaving several people dead and police officials saying they believed the attacker acted alone.

Six or seven people were reported dead and at least seven were injured, CNN affiliate RTL/NTV said. For its part, the Bild newspaper reported that seven people were killed and another 25 were injured, of whom eight were seriously injured. It is unclear whether the attacker was included in the death toll. Police said several people were seriously injured but declined to say how many were killed, Reuters reported.

The incident in the northern German city happened around 9pm local time on Thursday, and police were initially unsure how many gunmen may have been involved in the attack.

But later reports from city police suggested the attacker was only one, and he may have died at the scene, CNN notes.

“We currently believe there is only one perpetrator,” Hamburg police said in their latest Twitter update, hours after as armed police combed the scene for evidence and suspects.

“All police activities in the surrounding area are being consistently stopped. The investigation into the circumstances of the crime continues,” law enforcement said in a statement.

A police spokesman previously said authorities were investigating whether the shooter’s body was among several people found dead at the scene.

“We only know that several people died here; several people were injured and were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Wehren said of the shooting in the Gross Borstel district of Germany's second largest city.

After police were called to the attacked building, law enforcement officials saw dead and wounded people on the ground floor where the event took place, Hamburg police spokesman Holger Wehren told NTV.

Officers also heard a gunshot on the top floor of the building when they first entered it and found a dead man upstairs. Police believe it may have been the shooter, but said no further information could be provided at this time, a spokesman said.

Police were reported not to have to use their firearms.

Image from the scene showed numerous armed police in and around the Kingdom Hall as a helicopter flew overhead. A bomb disposal team was deployed in one location.

The location of the shooting was the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, a modern, boxy, three-story building next to an auto repair shop, the Associated Press reported.

When news of the shooting broke, Hamburg police said a major operation was underway in the Grossborstel district of the city. Several streets were closed and the public was warned by text messages to avoid the area. Local residents were told to stay home and use their phones only “as a last resort” to avoid overloading the network.

An unnamed witness said he heard gunshots. “There were 12 continuous shots… then we saw people being taken away in black bags,” he told German media.

Student Laura Bauch, who lives nearby, said there were “about four periods of shooting,” German news agency dpa reported. “During these periods, several shots were fired, approximately at intervals of 20 seconds to a minute,” says a witness to the tragedy. She said she looked out of her window and saw a man running from the first floor to the second floor of the Jehovah's Witnesses hall.

Gregor Misbah, who lives nearby, was alarmed by the sound of gunfire and noticed a figure entering the building through a window. Then shots were heard from inside. Later, the figure, who was filmed by an eyewitness, appears to leave the hall, is seen in the courtyard, and then fires several more shots inside. Misbah told German television news agency NonstopNews that he heard at least 25 gunshots. After police arrived, the final shot followed about five minutes later, he said. His video, published online by the Bild newspaper, shows the man firing several shots into the building through a ground-floor window before the lights went out.

Police had no information about an event taking place in the building when the shooting occurred. Law enforcement agencies also do not yet have immediate information about the possible motive for the attack. A police spokesman says “the background is still completely unclear.”

Streets around the place of worship were cordoned off and police had previously warned of “extreme danger” in the area, the spokesman added.

“There is no confirmed information about the motive for the crime,” police said on Twitter, urging people not to share any unconfirmed speculation. “The investigation is ongoing,” the department added.

Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschencher expressed his “deepest sympathy” to the victims’ relatives, calling reports of the incident “shocking” on Twitter.

“My deepest condolences to the victims' relatives. Emergency services are working at full speed to pursue the criminal(s),” he wrote.

As the Associated Press recalls, Jehovah's Witnesses are part of an international church founded in the United States in the 19th century and headquartered in Warwick, New York. The organization claims to have about 8.7 million members worldwide, including about 170,000 in Germany. Church members are known for their evangelistic efforts, which include, among other things, the distribution of literature in public squares. Distinctive practices of the denomination include not bearing arms, giving blood transfusions, saluting the national flag, or participating in secular government. Let us remember that in Russia the organization was recognized as extremist and banned.

Shooting incidents in Germany are not unheard of, although they occur less frequently than in the United States, CNN notes. In January 2022, at least one person was killed after a man opened fire on students in a lecture hall at the University of Heidelberg in southwest Germany. In February 2020, a far-right extremist shot dead 10 people and wounded five others in the central German city of Hanau. And in 2019, two people were killed after a neo-Nazi attempted to storm a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.