Andraes said at a news conference that the attacker’s motive was still “fully unclear.”Witnesses had reported seeing three men with firearms near the Olympia Einkaufszentrum mall, but police said on Twitter that “as part of our manhunt we found a person who had killed himself – the person is likely to have been the attacker who, according to the current state of the investigation, acted alone”.
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Earlier that day, the shooter hacked a Facebook account and sent a message inviting people to come to the mall for a giveaway, said Robert Heimberger, the head of Bavaria’s criminal police.
A police source cited by DPA news agency said he loved playing violent video games and was an admirer of the 17-year-old German who shot dead 15 people at his school near Stuttgart in 2009.
De Maiziere said a unit of federal police had been readied on Friday given initial indications of a possible large militant attack, but in the end it was not used.
His name has not been officially released but he is being named locally as David Sonboly.
Investigators said the Munich shooter had researched that slaughter online and had visited the site of a previous school shooting in the German town of Winnenden past year.
Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, said, however, that Germany’s weapons regulations are already “very strict” and appropriate.
Police believed it was an older weapon that had been reassembled, and were still working to establish where the attacker had obtained the 300 rounds of ammunition found in his rucksack.
A search of the shooter’s home overnight revealed a trove of literature about mass killings, including a German-language translation of the English book “Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters”.
Munich prosecutor Thomas Steinkraus-Koch said Sonboly had suffered depression, but voiced caution over reports he may have undergone psychiatric treatment.
Authorities said nine people were killed, excluding the gunman, and 27 were injured, 10 with serious injuries.
The killer had no known links to the Islamic State militant group, police said.
NTV showed amateur video footage of the suspect running away from the scene before cutting to him lying on the ground, his face bloodied and his hands cuffed by police.
Retail industry experts also said that at this point brands don’t appear to be the targets – it’s just that many of them happen to be in public places that are vulnerable to attacks.
One victim was 45, another 20 and the rest were between 14 and 19, Munich police Chief Hubertus Andrae said.
German interior minister Thomas De Maiziere says there is “no indication of any connection to global terrorism” in the Munich attack. Twenty-seven people were hospitalized, including four with gunshot wounds, he said.
“In 2010 and 2012 he was the victim of an attack – on one occasion he was beaten by three young offenders”.
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European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said: “Europe stands united”.
