Police officers stand outside a building where a shooting the night before left at least eight people dead and eight more wounded in Alsterdorf district on March 9, 2023, in Hamburg, Germany. (Photo by Gregor Fischer/Getty Images) HAMBURG, Germany - A former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses shot dead six people at a hall belonging to the congregation in the German city of Hamburg before killing himself after police arrived, authorities said Friday.Police said an unborn baby also died, without clarifying whether the baby's mother was among the dead.
Eight people were wounded, four of them seriously.There was no immediate indication of a possible motive for Thursday night’s attack, which stunned Germany’s second-biggest city, but prosecutors said there was no evidence for a terrorist link.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a former Hamburg mayor, described it as "a brutal act of violence."Hamburg’s top security official said officers who arrived just minutes after receiving the first emergency call at 9:04 p.m.
A special operations unit that was nearby reached the site at 9:09 and was able to separate the gunman from the congregation, Hamburg’s state Interior Minister Andy Grote said."We can assume that they saved many people’s lives this way," he told reporters during a news conference.