The 18-year-old man identified as the lone perpetrator in Friday’s shooting that left nine people dead, including children, was obsessed with mass killings and law enforcement sources say he may have lured some of his victims to their deaths by offering free food at the local McDonald’s where much of the carnage took place.
While authorities searched the home of the man, who police say killed himself following the attack, the Associated Press reports they “found a considerable amount of literature about mass killings, including a book titled ‘Rampage in Head: Why Students Kill.'” Officials said there was no available evidence he was linked to any political or extremist ideologies.
“Documents were found about mass shootings,” Munich’s police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters. “The perpetrator was obviously obsessed with the issue.”
The Guardian reports:
The Washington Post reports:
In a tweet by local law enforcement in Munich, the notion of a lone shooter in today’s attack appears to be confirmed:
Anti-Immigrant Terrorism? At Least 9 Dead, and More Wounded, in Munich Shooting Spree
Even as law enforcement officials would not speculate regarding motivations for the violence, an increasing amount of reporting and emerging eye-witness accounts suggest the shootings may have been a terrorist attack motivated by far-right xenophobia or anti-immigrant sentiment.
As the Guardian reports:
According to reporting by Sputnik, “locals suggest that the mall targeted was known as a spot where migrants often met. The shopping center was also near the Hasenbergl district, which hosts a large immigrant population.”
Contradicting that narrative, on-air reporting by CNN indicated a gunman shouted Allahuh Akbar while shooting victims inside a McDonald’s restaurant. None of these individual reports could be independently verified.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports:
Nine people have been killed, the police have confirmed, and one of the deceased may be a gunman.
And unconfirmed video circulating on social media purports to show one shooter standing on a roof shouting “I am German,” leading many to speculate that the attacks may have come from right-wing nationalists.
The number of people killed has climbed to seven, reports Sueddeutsche Zeitung, according to the local police.
The police say that they are searching for three perpetrators, and the entire city is their search area, according to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
A city spokesperson told reporters that there is no indication that the shootings are linked to Muslim extremism, as many have speculated in both German and American media.
President Obama has pledged support for Germany in the wake of the attack.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports that police have confirmed eyewitness accounts of shootings elsewhere in Munich. Shots were reported in the city’s pedestrian zone and near the Jagdmuseum. The newspaper writes that multiple police are en route to the area, armed with machine guns.
The police have asked everyone in Munich to stay at home and take shelter.
Under the hashtag #offenetür (“open door”), Munich residents are letting people know their homes are open for anyone nearby to seek shelter:
At least three people were shot and killed, with multiple others wounded, in a mass shooting at a shopping mall in Munich, Germany, late Friday afternoon. Police are reportedly in pursuit of perpetrators, and the situation is ongoing.
A witness interviewed by Germany’s Die Welt said that a man who was “dressed oddly” suddenly started shooting in a McDonald’s filled with people, and then calmly walked out of the restaurant and continued firing.
A video posted to YouTube purports to show cell phone footage of the shooting.
The spokeswoman for the Munich police told the media:
Die Welt reported that multiple people were lying prone on the floor, many dead and wounded, when rescue workers entered the building.
The shooter or shooters escaped on the subway, and police reportedly remain in pursuit. A tweet from the Munich police department warns the public that it does not know where the attackers are and asks people to avoid public places:
The chief of police told reporters, “This is a major situation.” A large police presence remains outside of the shopping mall.
As Common Dreams has noted, Germany has extremely tough gun laws, and mass shootings in the country are rare.