Suspect detained after Germany school shooting

Frankfurt: A 21-year-old gunman opened fire at a secondary school in northern Germany, badly injuring a female member of staff before being arrested, police said.

The incident happened at the Lloyd Gymnasium in the port city of Bremerhaven on Thursday.

Investigators were still in the dark about a possible motive, but public prosecutor Oliver Constien said initial findings suggested a “specific psychological disposition may have contributed to the crime”.

School shootings are relatively rare in Germany, which has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe.

But a recent spate of incidents has rattled the country.

Bremerhaven police said the suspect entered the school building shortly after 9am and fired at a female member of staff, who was “seriously injured”.

The alarm was quickly raised and police detained the suspect at a nearby location soon after, seizing his weapon.

The injured woman was being treated in hospital, they said.

Constien said investigators were trying to clarify whether the gunman had ties to the victim.

A video circulating on social media and German news sites appeared to capture the moment the suspect was arrested.

A man dressed in black is seen lying facedown on a street corner, with a weapon next to him, before being handcuffed by officers.

But there was no immediate confirmation of reports that the alleged weapon was a crossbow.

According to local media, officers had raced to the scene after a female pupil rang the police from the school bathroom upon hearing gunfire, triggering a large deployment of officers and rescue workers.

Teachers and pupils followed protocol by barricading themselves in their classrooms, reports said.

By 2pm, police said special forces had completed their search of the premises.

Michael Frost, head of the Bremerhaven schools department, told reporters there were only around 140 people on school grounds on Thursday instead of the usual 550 because of exams, excursions and external classes.

In another incident on Thursday, police in the city of Leipzig questioned a 21-year-old still in secondary school after being tipped off by Snapchat that he had posted images of himself with a gun in a classroom and made unspecified threats.

But police said the video turned out to be part of a school project, and the suspect only had an airsoft gun, a non-lethal replica firearm that shoots plastic pellets.