“The perpetrator was an 18-year-old German-Iranian from Munich”, police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters after the massacre Friday that left 10 people dead including the gunman.
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The gunman, who apparently used a pistol according to initial evidence, was not previously known to police.
Three of the injured are in serious conditions, and some children were wounded, Andrae said.
A worker at a shop in the mall, Harun Balta, said: “We are still stuck inside the mall without any information, we’re waiting for the police to rescue us”.
Al Jazeera’s David Chater, reporting from outside the shopping centre in Munich, said that this appeared to be the work of one lone gunman.
But officers believe they have evacuated everyone from the complex and brought them to safety. Those Olympics were marred by a terror attack that resulted in the death of 11 Israeli athletes at the hands of a Palestinian group.
Police are asking people not to share videos or images of the shooting or police activities on social media because it might help the suspects. “We assume that he was the only shooter”, Munich police department announced.
Details of the shooting were unclear, but witnesses indicated it began at a McDonald’s in the Olympia Einkaufszentrum, or shopping center, in the northern Moosach district.
Three armed assailants were involved in the shooting, said a police spokesman citing witnesses.
Police found body of the gunman near the shopping centre.
The Munich Transportation Authorities said it halted service on multiple train, tram and bus lines after the shooting, Reuters reported.
The shooting comes just days after a teenage asylum seeker went on the rampage with an axe and a knife on a regional train in Germany, injuring five people.
Police had told people to stay at home and avoid the streets.
A major German shopping mall is at the center of a shooting attack in Munich, Germany.
“The motives for this abhorrent act have not yet been completely clarified – we still have contradictory clues”, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement.
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USA intelligence officials said initial reports from their German counterparts indicated no apparent link between the suspect and Islamic State or other militant groups. Bavarian police shot dead the teenager after he wounded four people from Hong Kong on the train and also injured a local resident before being shot by police.
