: 8 Dead in Jehovahs Witnesses Hall Shooting in Germany #WorldNEWS HAMBURG, Germany — A shooting at a Jehovahs Witnesses hall in the German city of Hamburg left eight people dead, including apparently

8 Dead in Jehovahs Witnesses Hall Shooting in Germany #WorldNEWS
HAMBURG, Germany — A shooting at a Jehovahs Witnesses hall in the German city of Hamburg left eight people dead, including apparently the perpetrator, police said Friday. An unspecified number of other people were wounded, some of them seriously.
There was no word on a possible motive for Thursday nights attack, which stunned Germanys second-biggest city. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a former Hamburg mayor, described it as “a brutal act of violence. ”
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 Germanys 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. ”
Germany’s gun laws are more restrictive than those in the United States, but permissive compared to some European neighbors, and shootings are not unheard of.
Last year, an 18-year-old man opened fire in a packed lecture at Heidelberg University, killing one person and wounding three others before killing himself. In January 2020, a man shot dead six people including his parents and wounded two others in southwestern Germany, while a month later, a shooter who posted a racist rant online killed nine people near Frankfurt.
In the most recent shooting involving a site of worship, a far-right extremist attempted to force his way into a synagogue in Halle on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, in October 2019. After failing to gain entry, he shot two people to death nearby.
The German government announced plans last year to crack down on gun ownership by suspected extremists and to tighten background checks. Currently, anyone wanting to acquire a firearm must show that they are suited to do so, including by proving that they require a gun. Reasons can include being part of a sports shooting club or being a hunter.
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.