Gunman went on a rampage at a shopping center on Friday, leaving nine people dead in Munich.
Munich authorities said Saturday that the gunman who went on a rampage at a shopping center Friday, leaving nine people dead, had no ties to the Islamic State or other extremist groups. Instead, police believe, he was obsessed with mass killings and may have been mentally ill.
The southern German city's police chief said investigators had found a trove of electronic data and written materials at the suspect's home suggesting that he had extensively researched shooting sprees before he went on one of his own Friday afternoon. The items recovered included a book by a U.S. academic on school shootings titled "Rampage in the Head: Why Students Kill."
The attack was described Saturday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as "a night of horror," noting the killer had targeted people who were simply going about their lives, out for an early evening meal or some Friday night shopping.
"We're grieving with a heavy heart for those who will never return to their families," Merkel said in a brief statement from Berlin following a meeting of her security cabinet. "We're suffering with them."
Later on Saturday afternoon, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the killer's motives were still being investigated but there were not believed to be links to international terrorist groups.
Maziere said instead that the killer had been "bullied by peers" and that violent video games had likely played a role in inspiring the attack.
Of the victims, Maiziere said, the young age of many of them "will break your heart."
"How is it possible for society to prevent these attacks?" he asked, without providing an answer.
The killer's full name has not been disclosed. But a spokesman for the Munich prosecutor's office said he was an 18-year-old dual Iranian-German national who was born and raised in Munich and was associated with two first names: David and Ali. He did not have a criminal record, but "may have had a mental disorder," according to Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, Munich's prosecutor.
Maiziere said the use of David as a first name may suggest the killer had converted to Christianity from Islam. But his parents said he was not a practicing member of any religion.
Whatever the killer's exact motive, he acted alone, Munich Police Chief Hubertus Andra said, and his behavior had "nothing to do with immigrants or immigration," despite speculation to the contrary throughout Friday afternoon and evening as the attack unfolded.
Prosecutors said they could find no ties to extremist organizations and did not believe that the killer, who fatally shot himself in the head as police closed in, had any larger political objective.
"We are talking about a perpetrator without any political background," Steinkraus-Koch said.
But the attack did appear to have been meticulously planned.
Authorities said they were investigating the possibility that the killer had lured his intended victims to a local McDonald's by hacking into a Facebook account and offering free food. The McDonald's was later a center of the carnage, with at least four people dying there.
Friday's attack played out on the fifth anniversary of a Norwegian massacre by right-wing extremist Anders Breivik that claimed the lives of 77 people. Andra said the anniversary "played a role" in the timing of Friday's attack, given the killer's apparent obsession with mass murder.
The disclosures in a midday news conference by Munich officials offered the first tangible clues of what may have driven the killing spree, which was the third mass-casualty attack in Europe in just eight days -- and the second in Germany.
Merkel acknowledged the frequency of the recent attacks had been unnerving. But she expressed confidence in German security services, and assured the nation that investigators were doing all they could to get to the bottom of both Friday night's rampage and an ax attack on a train earlier in the week.
The dead in Munich ranged in age from 14 to 45. Most were younger than 20, three were women, and three were Turkish nationals, according to Turkey's foreign minister. Munich officials said all of the dead were local residents.
The rampage, which left 27 people injured, set off a panic in Munich, with 4,310 calls pouring in to the city's emergency operations center in a matter of hours, matching the typical total for four days.
The killer was armed with a Glock semiautomatic pistol that had its serial number scratched out, suggesting it had been obtained illegally. He had about 300 rounds of ammunition and still had multiple cartridges in a bag when he shot himself in the head, ending the rampage hours after it began.
Although plainclothes police had fired at the suspect after tracking him down, Andra said they had not struck him, and the left-handed killer died of a single bullet wound about half a mile from the shopping center where he first opened fire.
The shooting spree was initially described by police as an act of "suspected terrorism" - suggesting a political motive.
But as authorities searched an apartment in the city's Maxvorstadt district, a different picture emerged, one that pointed to a troubled teenager who may have been inspired by other teens who have gone on shooting rampages for no apparent reason.
Neighbors interviewed by the German tabloid Bild, which ran the headline "Bloodbath in Munich" across its front page Saturday, described the suspected killer as "a quiet guy." Maxvorstadt is a university district filled with museums close to Munich's historic city center. During the shooting spree, the suspect was filmed shouting that he had grown up in an area for those receiving state-funded welfare benefits.
In a furious exchange with the man who was filming him as he paced the top floor of an empty parking deck, the killer also insisted "I am German!" after the man wielding his cellphone to record the video called him a derogatory term for a foreigner.
The news service DPA reported, citing a security source, that the killer had not been known to police but that he played violent video games and admired the 17-year-old who killed 15 people in a shooting spree at a school in Winnenden, near Stuttgart, in 2009.
The news agency said the killer's parents moved to Germany in the 1990s and that he had grown up in the country but had struggled in school.
Maiziere confirmed that materials related to the Winnenden attack and the Breivik killings in Norway had been seized from the killer's apartment, but said it was too early to say exactly what role they had played in motivating the shooting spree.
Andra said a vast array of electronic evidence had been seized from the suspect's apartment, and suggested video games could be among the items recovered.
Officials said there was no suicide note or other statement of intent.
The attack was condemned across the world. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi decried "the killing of innocent and defenseless people," according to IRNA, Iran's official news agency. French President Francois Hollande also denounced the "disgusting terrorist attack."
"Germany will resist; it can count on France's friendship and cooperation," Hollande said, adding that he planned to speak with Merkel later on Saturday.
Much of the city was placed on lockdown for hours on Friday as police conducted the manhunt. Despite initial reports of multiple attack sites, police could not confirm attacks in any other locations besides the shopping area. They initially thought as many as three assailants were involved, but later said two people who had been spotted speeding away from the crime scene were not connected to the bloodshed.
Although the emergency restrictions had been lifted and public transit resumed normal operations, Munich on Saturday remained deeply shaken by the attack.
The assault followed a July 14 attack by a Tunisian-born man who killed 84 people in the French Riviera city of Nice by plowing a truck into a crowd. On Monday, an Afghan teenager wielding an ax wounded five people on a train near the Bavarian city of Wurzburg.
In both those cases, the assailants were inspired by the Islamic State, authorities said.
Before Saturday's news conference, German officials had initially said investigators were looking into the possibility that Friday's attack was motivated by anti-immigrant sentiments, as well as the prospect that Islamist extremism was behind it.
In the hours after the killings, about 50 people of various ethnic backgrounds gathered at a Munich sports hall early Saturday to await official word on the fate of missing loved ones.
There have been few mass shootings in recent years in Germany, which has tough gun laws, and police said they had not previously been aware of any threat posed by the gunman.
German security forces, however, have been on heightened alert since Monday's train attack. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for that assault, but as with the shooting in Munich, German authorities said there is no evidence of direct links between the assailant and the group.
Last month, German authorities did arrest three Syrians suspected of planning an Islamic State attack on the city of Dusseldorf. The men had entered Germany with a wave of migrants fleeing war and mayhem in the Middle East.
The alleged plot involved suicide bombers, firearms and explosives, German authorities said. The arrests potentially thwarted a deadly operation comparable to assaults on Brussels in March and Paris in November.
© 2016 The Washington Post
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
The southern German city's police chief said investigators had found a trove of electronic data and written materials at the suspect's home suggesting that he had extensively researched shooting sprees before he went on one of his own Friday afternoon. The items recovered included a book by a U.S. academic on school shootings titled "Rampage in the Head: Why Students Kill."
The attack was described Saturday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as "a night of horror," noting the killer had targeted people who were simply going about their lives, out for an early evening meal or some Friday night shopping.
"We're grieving with a heavy heart for those who will never return to their families," Merkel said in a brief statement from Berlin following a meeting of her security cabinet. "We're suffering with them."
Later on Saturday afternoon, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the killer's motives were still being investigated but there were not believed to be links to international terrorist groups.
Maziere said instead that the killer had been "bullied by peers" and that violent video games had likely played a role in inspiring the attack.
Of the victims, Maiziere said, the young age of many of them "will break your heart."
"How is it possible for society to prevent these attacks?" he asked, without providing an answer.
The killer's full name has not been disclosed. But a spokesman for the Munich prosecutor's office said he was an 18-year-old dual Iranian-German national who was born and raised in Munich and was associated with two first names: David and Ali. He did not have a criminal record, but "may have had a mental disorder," according to Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, Munich's prosecutor.
Maiziere said the use of David as a first name may suggest the killer had converted to Christianity from Islam. But his parents said he was not a practicing member of any religion.
Whatever the killer's exact motive, he acted alone, Munich Police Chief Hubertus Andra said, and his behavior had "nothing to do with immigrants or immigration," despite speculation to the contrary throughout Friday afternoon and evening as the attack unfolded.
Prosecutors said they could find no ties to extremist organizations and did not believe that the killer, who fatally shot himself in the head as police closed in, had any larger political objective.
"We are talking about a perpetrator without any political background," Steinkraus-Koch said.
But the attack did appear to have been meticulously planned.
Authorities said they were investigating the possibility that the killer had lured his intended victims to a local McDonald's by hacking into a Facebook account and offering free food. The McDonald's was later a center of the carnage, with at least four people dying there.
Friday's attack played out on the fifth anniversary of a Norwegian massacre by right-wing extremist Anders Breivik that claimed the lives of 77 people. Andra said the anniversary "played a role" in the timing of Friday's attack, given the killer's apparent obsession with mass murder.
The disclosures in a midday news conference by Munich officials offered the first tangible clues of what may have driven the killing spree, which was the third mass-casualty attack in Europe in just eight days -- and the second in Germany.
Merkel acknowledged the frequency of the recent attacks had been unnerving. But she expressed confidence in German security services, and assured the nation that investigators were doing all they could to get to the bottom of both Friday night's rampage and an ax attack on a train earlier in the week.
The dead in Munich ranged in age from 14 to 45. Most were younger than 20, three were women, and three were Turkish nationals, according to Turkey's foreign minister. Munich officials said all of the dead were local residents.
The rampage, which left 27 people injured, set off a panic in Munich, with 4,310 calls pouring in to the city's emergency operations center in a matter of hours, matching the typical total for four days.
The killer was armed with a Glock semiautomatic pistol that had its serial number scratched out, suggesting it had been obtained illegally. He had about 300 rounds of ammunition and still had multiple cartridges in a bag when he shot himself in the head, ending the rampage hours after it began.
Although plainclothes police had fired at the suspect after tracking him down, Andra said they had not struck him, and the left-handed killer died of a single bullet wound about half a mile from the shopping center where he first opened fire.
The shooting spree was initially described by police as an act of "suspected terrorism" - suggesting a political motive.
But as authorities searched an apartment in the city's Maxvorstadt district, a different picture emerged, one that pointed to a troubled teenager who may have been inspired by other teens who have gone on shooting rampages for no apparent reason.
Neighbors interviewed by the German tabloid Bild, which ran the headline "Bloodbath in Munich" across its front page Saturday, described the suspected killer as "a quiet guy." Maxvorstadt is a university district filled with museums close to Munich's historic city center. During the shooting spree, the suspect was filmed shouting that he had grown up in an area for those receiving state-funded welfare benefits.
In a furious exchange with the man who was filming him as he paced the top floor of an empty parking deck, the killer also insisted "I am German!" after the man wielding his cellphone to record the video called him a derogatory term for a foreigner.
The news service DPA reported, citing a security source, that the killer had not been known to police but that he played violent video games and admired the 17-year-old who killed 15 people in a shooting spree at a school in Winnenden, near Stuttgart, in 2009.
The news agency said the killer's parents moved to Germany in the 1990s and that he had grown up in the country but had struggled in school.
Maiziere confirmed that materials related to the Winnenden attack and the Breivik killings in Norway had been seized from the killer's apartment, but said it was too early to say exactly what role they had played in motivating the shooting spree.
Andra said a vast array of electronic evidence had been seized from the suspect's apartment, and suggested video games could be among the items recovered.
Officials said there was no suicide note or other statement of intent.
The attack was condemned across the world. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi decried "the killing of innocent and defenseless people," according to IRNA, Iran's official news agency. French President Francois Hollande also denounced the "disgusting terrorist attack."
"Germany will resist; it can count on France's friendship and cooperation," Hollande said, adding that he planned to speak with Merkel later on Saturday.
Much of the city was placed on lockdown for hours on Friday as police conducted the manhunt. Despite initial reports of multiple attack sites, police could not confirm attacks in any other locations besides the shopping area. They initially thought as many as three assailants were involved, but later said two people who had been spotted speeding away from the crime scene were not connected to the bloodshed.
Although the emergency restrictions had been lifted and public transit resumed normal operations, Munich on Saturday remained deeply shaken by the attack.
The assault followed a July 14 attack by a Tunisian-born man who killed 84 people in the French Riviera city of Nice by plowing a truck into a crowd. On Monday, an Afghan teenager wielding an ax wounded five people on a train near the Bavarian city of Wurzburg.
In both those cases, the assailants were inspired by the Islamic State, authorities said.
Before Saturday's news conference, German officials had initially said investigators were looking into the possibility that Friday's attack was motivated by anti-immigrant sentiments, as well as the prospect that Islamist extremism was behind it.
In the hours after the killings, about 50 people of various ethnic backgrounds gathered at a Munich sports hall early Saturday to await official word on the fate of missing loved ones.
There have been few mass shootings in recent years in Germany, which has tough gun laws, and police said they had not previously been aware of any threat posed by the gunman.
German security forces, however, have been on heightened alert since Monday's train attack. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for that assault, but as with the shooting in Munich, German authorities said there is no evidence of direct links between the assailant and the group.
Last month, German authorities did arrest three Syrians suspected of planning an Islamic State attack on the city of Dusseldorf. The men had entered Germany with a wave of migrants fleeing war and mayhem in the Middle East.
The alleged plot involved suicide bombers, firearms and explosives, German authorities said. The arrests potentially thwarted a deadly operation comparable to assaults on Brussels in March and Paris in November.
© 2016 The Washington Post
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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