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Germany Shooting: Suspect Found Dead; Death Toll Rises to 9

A short police statement gave no information on the victims.

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A man suspected of fatally shooting nine people in the German city of Hanau was found dead at his residence early Thursday, 20 February, hours after the attacks in and outside two hookah lounges, police said.

Officers also found another body at the same address, police said.

Police gave no details of the suspected gunman but said “there are currently no indications of further perpetrators.” They did not give details of his possible motive or how he died, or specify why they believe “with a high degree of probability” that he was the assailant.

The number of dead in the shootings Wednesday, 19 February, evening rose to nine, a police statement said.

Police said work to confirm the identities of the two bodies at the house was still underway, and they couldn't immediately give details either on them or the identities of the victims of the earlier shootings.

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Motive Not Clear Yet, Say Cops

A heavy police presence was in place in central Hanau, with officers cordoning off the scene of one of the shootings as a helicopter hovered overhead. A car covered in thermal foil also could be seen, with shattered glass next to it.

Forensic experts in white overalls collected evidence from the scene.

A short police statement gave no information on the victims. It said the motive is not immediately clear.

Four people were killed in central Hanau. At the second site, about two-and-a-half kilometers (1.5 miles) away, five people were killed.

Hookah lounges are places where people gather to smoke flavored tobacco from Middle Eastern water pipes.

“This was a terrible evening that will certainly occupy us for a long, long time and we will remember with sadness.”
Claus Kaminsky, Hanau Mayor Claus Kaminsky, to the Bild newspaper
  • Police guard the scenery in front of a restaurant in central Hanau, Germany Thursday,20 February 2020

    (Photo: AP)

Lawmaker Katja Leikert, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right party who represents Hanau in the German parliament, tweeted that it was “a real horror scenario for us all.”

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Police said a dark vehicle was seen leaving the scene of the first shooting, and another shooting was reported at a second site.

Regional public broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk said, without citing sources, that an attack took place in a hookah lounge in the center of the city. It said witnesses reported hearing eight or nine shots and seeing at least one person lying on the ground.

The perpetrator or perpetrators then apparently went to another part of the city, where shots were fired in another hookah lounge, the broadcaster said.

Hanau is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Frankfurt. It has about 100,000 inhabitants and is in Hesse state.

Police from neighboring Bavaria were deployed to help their local colleagues, DPA reported.

(This is a developing story. It will be updated with more details.)

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Topics:  Germany   Shooting 

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