Hamburg Church Shooting Claims 7 Lives

Several people shoot to death at a Jehovah’s Witness center in Hamburg. Though there is no official confirmation about the death count from cops, the local media outlet reports that seven people are dead and eight are seriously injured. The German police believe that the gunman is among the dead. The first emergency call was made around 20:15GMT  after shots rang out at the building in the city’s northern district of Gross Borstel said the cops. Adding they said that there is no reliable information on the motive of the crime.

The alert for "extreme danger" in the area had been raised via a catastrophe warning app. The police urged people to not step out of their houses.

 On Thursday evening, authorities claimed, an event was taking place in the three-story building.

According to the Hamburger Abendblatt, Jehovah's Witnesses had assembled for a weekly Bible study gathering.

There are around 175,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany, including 3,800 in Hamburg, an American Christian organization founded in the late 1800s that promotes nonviolence and is noted for door-to-door evangelism.

According to officials, the first cops on the scene discovered multiple deceased bodies and critically injured persons.