More global brands are setting their sights on the USA for expansion after recent attacks in Germany and France, said Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of retail leasing and marketing at Prudential Douglas Elliman. “The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear”.
Advertisement
Investigators found the body of the suspected shooter, who appears to have acted alone and then killed himself.
“We believe we are dealing with a shooting rampage”, police said adding no one is in custody but they suspect “a terror attack”.
Unconfirmed video posted on Twitter appears to show a single gunman wearing dark-colored clothing open fire on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.
The shopping centre, which opened in the 1970s and bills itself as Bavaria’s biggest, was surrounded by armed police, while a helicopter buzzed overhead.
An employee who was inside the mall told Reuters by phone that many shots were fired.
“At the moment no culprit has been arrested”, police in the Bavarian capital said on social media.
Authorities were evacuating people from the Olympia mall but many others were hiding inside. Bavarian police shot dead the teenager after he wounded four people from Hong Kong on the train and injured a local resident while fleeing.
A total of 2,300 policemen and special forces were deployed in the action after the attack, including forces from neighboring federal states and Austria, according to Andrae.
In a separate statement, the White House said the United States “condemns in the strongest terms the apparent terrorist attack that has claimed innocent lives in Munich”.
The police called the shootout in Munich as an “acute terror situation”, as German news television N-TV reported earlier, citing an official announcement of Munich police.
His thoughts are with the victims and all those who were mourning or fearing for a loved one, it said.
Several highways north of Munich were also sealed off by police.
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.
Friday’s attack took place a week after a 17-year-old asylum-seeker wounded passengers on a German train in an ax rampage.
The Olympia mall is near the stadium for the 1972 Olympics and the athletes’ village, which was the site of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian Black September group. All survived, although one man from the train remains in life-threatening condition.
Advertisement
US President Barack Obama pledged support for Germany.
