7 dead in shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness hall in Germany

Seven people were killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall in the German city of Hamburg on Thursday, police said, with the suspected gunman apparently also killed.

A number of others were injured, some of them seriously, in the shooting, police said in an update early Friday.

“On March 9, 2023 at around 9:00 p.m. local [3 p.m. ET], a suspect shot at visitors to an event in a church on Deelböge Street,” police said in the statement. According to current information, “8 people were fatally injured, apparently including the alleged perpetrator,” the statement said.

There was no indication of a possible motive for the shooting, which unfolded in the Gross Borstel district in the north of the country’s second-biggest city.

A warning covering the surrounding area has now been lifted. Police have appealed to the public for any information or digital images of the incident or the alleged shooter.

“Terrible news from #Hamburg. Several members of a Jehovah’s Church fell victim to a brutal act of violence last night,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a tweet Friday morning.

“My thoughts are with them and their families. And with the security forces, who have had a difficult deployment behind them,” said Scholz, a former mayor of Hamburg.

“We have found a lifeless person in a community center in #GroßBorstel, which we assume could be a perpetrator,” Hamburg police tweeted early Friday.

Earlier, police spokesman Holger Vehren said: “We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals,” according to The Associated Press.

Vehren said police arrived shortly after they were notified about the shooting at 9:15 p.m. and heard a gunshot from the upstairs area of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall, the AP reported.

“So far, there is no reliable information on the motive for the crime,” police tweeted then, and they asked people not to spread rumors.

Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher tweeted that the police reports were “shocking.”

“My deepest condolences to the families of the victims,” he said.

Hamburg is Germany’s second-largest city and its wider metropolitan region is home to more than 5 million people, according to the Council of Europe.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination founded in the United States in 1872. They claim more than 8 million witnesses worldwide.

Patrick Smith

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.

Phil Helsel

Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.

Andy Eckardt and Carlo Angerer contributed.