Martin says “according to my knowledge, we’re looking for three suspects” in the attack late Friday afternoon outside a McDonald’s in Munich that police say has left eight other people dead and several wounded.
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Lynn Stein, who said she works at the Jack Wolfskin store in the mall, told CNN that the shooter was inside the mall.
Obama reacted to the shooting at a press conference today, stating, “It’s still an active situation, and Germany’s one of our closest allies, so we’re going to pledge all the support that they may need dealing with these circumstances”.
A police spokesman said there was no immediate indication that it was an Islamist attack but it was being treated as a terrorist incident.
Munich police spokesman Marcus Martins says a ninth body has been found at the scene of a shooting attack in Munich and police are “intensively examining” it to see if it may be one of the attackers. Special forces from neighboring states and the German federal police are responding to Munich to help with the search and investigation. Transit has been shut down in the city, and authorities asked people to avoid public areas.
Witness Luan Zequiri said he was in the mall when the shooting began.
A spokesperson said they were investigating whether the suspect killed himself and if he had an Islamic background. She understands had she been in the mall at the time of the attack, it’s likely she would have not lived to talk about it. “Had I made a decision to go there for a third time, like 10 to 15 minutes earlier, I would have been dead right now”, she said.
The mall is next to the stadium where the Palestinian militant group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and later killed them during the 1972 Olympic Games.
Altmaier noted that Friday was the fifth anniversary of the massacre in Oslo, Norway, by a far-right extremist that killed 77 people, 69 of them at a youth summer camp.
“The resolve of Germany, the United States, and the broader worldwide community will remain unshaken in the face of acts of despicable violence such as this”, the statement said.
Just this week, a 17-year-old Afghan refugee carried out an ax attack, targeting 20 passengers inside a train in the German city of Bavaria.
The tool was put into use in the Bastille Day terror attack in Nice when a man drove a lorry into crowds of people, killing 84. Five guerrillas and a police officer were also killed. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.
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The death toll of the attack also rose to 8.
