Armed cops are seen close to Thursday’s taking pictures in Hamburg, Germany.

Jonas Walzberg/dpa through AP

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Jonas Walzberg/dpa through AP

Armed cops are seen close to Thursday’s taking pictures in Hamburg, Germany.

Jonas Walzberg/dpa through AP

BERLIN — Shots have been fired inside a constructing utilized by Jehovah’s Witnesses within the northern German metropolis of Hamburg on Thursday night, and a number of other individuals have been killed or wounded, police mentioned.

The taking pictures befell within the Gross Borstel district, a number of kilometers (miles) north of the downtown space of Germany’s second-biggest metropolis.

“We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren mentioned.

He mentioned he had no data on the severity of the accidents suffered by the wounded.

The scene of the taking pictures was the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall, a contemporary and boxy three-story constructing subsequent door to an auto restore store.

Vehren mentioned police have been alerted to the taking pictures about 9:15 p.m. and have been on the scene rapidly.

He mentioned that after officers arrived and located individuals with obvious gunshot wounds on the bottom flooring, they heard a shot from an higher flooring and located a fatally wounded particular person upstairs who might have been a shooter. He mentioned police didn’t have to make use of their firearms.

Vehren mentioned there was no indication {that a} shooter was on the run and that it appeared doubtless that the perpetrator was both within the constructing or among the many lifeless.

Two witnesses interviewed on n-tv tv, whose names weren’t given, mentioned they heard 12 photographs.

Police had no data on the occasion that was below means within the constructing when the taking pictures befell.

They additionally had no fast data on a attainable motive. Vehren mentioned that “the background is still completely unclear.”

Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher tweeted that the information was “shocking” and supplied his sympathy to the victims’ family members.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a part of a global church, based within the United States within the nineteenth century and headquartered in Warwick, New York. It claims a worldwide membership of about 8.7 million, with about 170,000 in Germany.

Members are identified for his or her evangelistic efforts that embody knocking on doorways and distributing literature in public squares. The denomination’s distinctive practices embody a refusal to bear arms, obtain blood transfusions, salute a nationwide flag or take part in secular authorities.