Seven people were killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness center in Hamburg, Germany, in the city’s northern district of Gross Borstel, around 9 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET. An event had been taking place on Thursday evening inside the building. Several were seriously injured. They have been taken to hospitals. It’s believed the gunman was among the dead. Local media footage showed a big police presence outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall. An alarm for “extreme danger” in the area had been sounded using a catastrophe warning app. Hamburg’s Interior Minister, Andy Grote, said on Twitter that police special forces and a large number of officers had been deployed to the scene.The streets around the place of worship have been cordoned off. Police had not yet identified the victims. The motive of the crime was unknown.
Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher tweeted that the news was “shocking”. In a Twitter update in the early hours Friday Hamburg police said they believed there was only one shooter. Jehovah’s Witnesses are members of a Christian-based religious movement. Germany has been rocked by several attacks in recent years, both by jihadists and far-right extremists.
