A wide area around the Olympia shopping centre was closed off by police. German media say multiple people are injured. Reports are now emerging of a shooting near a subway station at the city’s center; the metro system has been evacuated.
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The shopping centre is next to the Munich Olympic stadium, where the Palestinian militant group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually killed them during the 1972 Olympic Games.
“We don’t yet know exactly what’s happening there, but obviously our hearts go out to those who may have been injured”, Obama said, before speaking at a White House meeting.
“We are going to pledge all the support they may need”, he said. There are conflicting reports on casualties.
Claudia Kuenzel, a spokeswoman for Munich police, said there were several dead and wounded, according to the Associated Press.
“At the moment no culprit has been arrested”, Munich police said on social media. “Please avoid public places”.
There are reports of a mass shooting at the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum (OEZ) shopping center in Munich, Germany.
Germany’s Interior Ministry said Munich police had set up a hotline for concerned citizens.
A Munich police spokeswoman said she believed they were dealing with a “shooting rampage”.
Shots were fired in a shopping centre in Munich on Friday evening resulting in “multiple deaths”, a police spokesperson was quoted as telling CNN.
“For your own safety, avoid squares and streets: perpetrators are on the run”, said a statement on the website of the United States embassy in Germany.
Television images of people walking away from the center have been shown.
The attack started at a fast food restaurant shortly before 6 p.m. local time, police spokesman Thomas Baumann told German news agency dpa.
The decision followed the killing of at least six persons by gunmen, who attacked a shopping centre in the city.
Emergency vehicles were seen in the streets outside, as passers-by looked on.
A swarm of police officers and tactical units are now in the area.
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This is the second attack in Germany this week, after an Afghan youth attacked five people with an ax and a knife on Monday night near Wuerzburg before being shot dead by police.
