BERLIN: Six people were shot and killed at a youth welfare facility in northern Germany on Monday, with footage by the Bild newspaper later showing police surrounding and detaining two people from a car that was driving down a road with a busted tyre.
Police called the incident a homicide with multiple victims in the town of Stade near the port city of Hamburg. The motive was not immediately clear. The Spiegel news outlet, citing information it obtained, said it was likely a personal rather than political or extremist matter.
Police said that two people had been detained, including the suspected shooter. Police had warned people to stay away from the area where the incident took place, but later said there was no danger to the general public.
German media reports initially said four women and one man were dead. Police later said a sixth adult had died in hospital of wounds.
Police said the incident occurred at a youth welfare facility in Stade, a town of nearly 50,000 people to the west of Hamburg. German media said the site included facilities for mothers and children.
Footage posted by the Bild newspaper showed a car with a busted right tyre slowing to a halt in a tree-lined road. Police with guns then ran towards the car and detained two people who were made to lie flat on the ground.
Police cordoned off the area near the youth facility in a cobbled street with red brick homes, and forensic experts in white suits and plainclothes police were at the scene.
Mass shootings are rare in Germany, especially when compared to the United States. In 2023, a gunman in Hamburg shot dead six people before killing himself at a Jehovah’s Witness worship hall. In 2016, an 18-year-old German-Iranian man who was obsessed with mass killings killed at least nine people in Munich.