A shooting in a religious center for Jehovah’s Witnesses in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, March 9th, has killed eight, including an unborn child, and the gunman, according to German and international media reports.
The perpetrator, a 35-year-old German man who was once a member of that religious community, took his own life after the fact, Hamburg police have confirmed.
Philipp F., a bachelor and Bavarian native, had been living and working in Hamburg since 2014. He committed the crime with a semi-automatic pistol he had legally acquired for sport-shooting purposes; it had been registered in his name since last December.
According to the police’s statement, a special unit of riot police was nearby when an emergency call came in around 9:15 p.m. A few minutes later, officers entered the building, finding several dead and wounded.
Subsequently, one gunshot was heard from the upper floor, where the officers found the body of the perpetrator. It is assumed he had fled there when he heard police arriving, and decided to end his life.
In addition to the shooter, four men and two women between 23 and 60 years old lost their lives, together with an unborn baby girl in the 28th week of gestation; the child’s mother survived.
Eight others were injured, four of them seriously. All victims are German, except for two women among the wounded, who are from Ukraine and Uganda. The gathering counted 50 in total.
During a Friday press conference, police chief Martin Meyer said that Philipp F. had left the community “voluntarily, but not in the greatest of moods.”
F., he added, had fired a total of nine 15-shot magazines at his former co-religionists during the Thursday church service. In a later search of F.’s apartment, investigators found four boxes with 200 cartridges each as well as 15 full magazines.
Meyer added that an anonymous tip had come in that Philipp F. might not be fit to handle weapons based on an undiagnosed mental illness. While a background check had indeed occurred, no preventative measures were taken.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was the mayor of Hamburg between 2011 and 2018, on Twitter spoke of “a brutal act of violence.” While he offered words of comfort to the victims and their loved ones, he extended his gratitude to the security forces “who carried out a difficult operation.”
As events were unfolding and the identity of the shooter(s) was still unknown, the mayor of Hamburg, Peter Tschentscher, expressed his dismay, writing that “the news is shocking.”
Andy Grote, Hamburg’s Senator of the Interior, called it the “worst crime in the city’s recent history.”
In a separate statement, the German branch of the Jehovah’s Witnesses said they were “deeply saddened” by the “terrible attack” on its members.
A Christian denomination, the Jehovah’s Witnesses hold to a particular interpretation of the Bible. Its followers believe that the end times are near and that they are the ones chosen to be saved. Worldwide, there are about 8 million Jehovah’s Witnesses; in Germany, about 200,000.
