HAMBURG, Germany—German officials say the suspected perpetrator of a mass shooting in Hamburg was a former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Seven people were killed inside the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, including an unborn baby. Eight people were wounded, four of them seriously.
Thomas Radszuweit, a Hamburg security official, said the man was a 35-year-old German national whom he identified only as Philipp F. in line with German privacy rules. He said the suspected shooter was not previously known to authorities in Hamburg and there was no previous case against him.
He said that it’s not possible yet to pinpoint why the man went on the shooting rampage but there is no indication of a political motive.
Police say the perpetrator shot himself inside the Jehovah’s Witnesses hall after officers forced their way into the building
Hamburg police chief Ralf Martin Meyer said the suspected shooter had a weapons license and legally owned a semi-automatic pistol.
There was no word on a possible motive for Thursday night’s attack, which stunned Germany’s second-biggest city. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a former Hamburg mayor, described it as “a brutal act of violence.”
A spokesperson for Scholz, Christiane Hoffmann, referred to it as a “shooting rampage” rather than a suspected terrorist attack.
“The suspected perpetrator shot at several people during an event held by the congregation,” she told reporters in Berlin. “Our thoughts in these difficult hours are with the relatives, families, and friends of the victims and with those who were wounded by this act. We wish the wounded a swift recovery.”
Armed police officers near the scene of a shooting in Hamburg, Germany, on March 9, 2023. (Jonas Walzberg/dpa via AP)Police said earlier that they believed there was only one shooter, and that the person could be among the dead.
Officers apparently reached the hall while the attack was ongoing—and heard one more shot after they arrived, according to witnesses and authorities. They did not use their own firearms, a police spokesman said.
The head of Germany’s GdP police union in Hamburg, Horst Niens, said he was convinced that the swift arrival of a special operations unit “distracted the perpetrator and may have prevented further victims.”
Asked about a possible political response to the shooting, a spokesperson for Germany’s Interior Ministry, Maximilian Kall, said it was necessary to wait for the results of the investigations before drawing conclusions.
On Friday morning, forensic investigators in protective white suits could be seen outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall, a boxy, three-story building next to an auto repair shop, a few kilometers (miles) from downtown Hamburg. As a light snow fell, officers placed yellow cones on the ground and windowsills to mark evidence.
David Semonian, a U.S.-based spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses, said in an emailed statement early Friday that members “worldwide grieve for the victims of this traumatic event.”
Police spokesman Holger Vehren said police were alerted to the shooting Thursday night and were at the scene quickly.
He said that the officers found people with apparent gunshot wounds on the ground floor, and then heard a shot from an upper floor, where they found a fatally wounded person who may have been a shooter. They did not fire their weapons.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are part of an international church, founded in the United States in the 19th century and headquartered in Warwick, New York. It claims a worldwide membership of about 8.7 million, with about 170,000 in Germany.