There was no known motive for the shooting in Germany’s third largest city, which went into lockdown with transport halted and highways sealed off immediately after the attack.
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They were all kept inside for hours, he said, and he didn’t get back to his house – around 2 kilometres from the Olympia centre – until 11pm.
“We are telling the people of Munich there are shooters on the run who are unsafe”, a spokesman told reporters, adding that the police were looking for three perpetrators.
Police tweeted that they found a man they believed to be the only shooter, and earlier a spokesman had called the attack an act of terrorism.
The shooting began in a McDonald’s restaurant there shortly after 6 p.m. German time today (July 22).
Police shot and killed him in a confrontation.
The United States condemns in the strongest terms the apparent terrorist attack that has claimed innocent lives in Munich, Germany. “One of the best ways of preventing it is making sure we don’t divide our own country, that we don’t succumb to fear, that we don’t sacrifice our values, and that we send a very strong signal to the world and to every American citizen that we’re in this together”.
“Our response can not be to let them win by changing the way we live, or reacting ourselves with hatred and intolerance”.
Public figures have offered their condolences to people in Munich following the shopping centre shooting.
The shopping mall is located next to the Olympic Stadium in the city where 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were murdered by the Black September Palestinian militant group during the Olympic Games in 1972.
Munich police reported earlier that they were carrying out a large-scale operation in a Munich shopping center due to a shootout.
German media reported that multiple people have been casualties as a result of the alleged shootings.
Police said witnesses had seen shooting both inside the mall and on nearby streets.
No person or group has claimed responsibility, but a police spokesperson told The Guardian that there is no indication yet of Islamist terror.
“The motives for this abhorrent act have not yet been completely clarified – we still have contradictory clues”, Steinmeier explained in an emailed statement. Residents of Munich opened their doors to people seeking shelter using the Twitter hashtag #opendoor. Fire department crews from Germering, Gilching and Fürstenfeldbruck sped toward Munich on Friday to assist.
In the U.S., President Barack Obama pledged to provide Germany with whatever help it might need to investigate the mall shooting.
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Obama said “exactly what’s happening” in Munich was unclear.
