‘Cruel and inhumane attack’
Police ask people to refrain from speculating about Munich shooting
Police warned people to stay indoors Friday as they hunted for whoever opened fire at a Munich shopping mall, killing at least eight people and wounding others in a rampage they described as suspected terrorism.
“At the moment no culprit has been arrested,” police in the Bavarian capital said on social media. “The search is taking place at high speed.”
Germany’s elite GSG9 antiterror police, as well as federal police, were called in to help.
Witnesses reported seeing three men with firearms near the Olympia Einkaufszentrum mall.
Police said at least eight people were killed and an unknown number of others were wounded. Munich police spokesman Marcus Martins said a ninth body had been found and police were “intensively examining” whether it might be one of the suspects.
The city sent a smartphone alert telling people to stay indoors and German rail company Deutsche Bahn stopped train traffic to Munich’s main station.
The attack started at a fast food restaurant shortly before 6 p.m. local time, police spokesman Thomas Baumann told German news agency dpa.
Video obtained by The Associated Press from German news agency NonstopNews showed two bodies with sheets draped over them not far from a McDonald’s across from the mall. Another video posted online shows a gunman emerging from the door of the McDonald’s, raising what appears to be a pistol with both hands, and aiming at people on the sidewalk, firing as they flee in terror.
Germany’s Interior Ministry said Munich police had set up a hotline for concerned citizens. Residents of Munich opened their doors to people seeking shelter using the Twitter hashtag #opendoor.
Also on Twitter, police asked people to refrain from speculating about the attack. Germany’s interior minister cut short his holiday in the United States to go back to Berlin late Friday to meet with security officials.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s was being regularly briefed on the attack, said her chief of staff, Peter Altmaier.
“All that we know and can say right now is that it was a cruel and inhumane attack,” he said on German public channel ARD. “We can’t rule out that there are terrorist links. We can’t confirm them, but we are investigating along those lines too.”