AFP, STADE, Germany
A gunman on Monday killed four women and two men at a German shelter for mothers and their children, police said, reporting that the suspect was in a custody battle over his three-month-old daughter.Emergency workers rushed to the scene of the shooting in the northern town of Stade and found four people already dead. A fifth person died soon after at the scene, while a sixth later succumbed to their injuries.“The perpetrator had an appointment today, along with many of the victims, to discuss future custody arrangements for his three-month-old daughter,” Lueneburg Police Chief Kathrin Schuol said. “Both the child and her mother were present at the location, but were not injured by gunfire.”
A forensic expert works at the scene of a shooting at a youth welfare facility in Stade, Germany, on Monday.
The victims — four women and two men — were all child welfare workers, and had all been shot “in a brutal manner,” Schuol said.A seventh person was wounded and reported in a stable condition.
The suspected gunman tried to flee in a car driven by a 65-year-old woman — believed to have “a close connection to the gunman’s family” — but was captured after a short chase, Schuol said.Police opened fire on the car, but neither the suspected gunman nor the driver were hurt, she added.Both are being held in police custody.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called news of the shooting “deeply shocking.”“Many people who were trying to help and protect others have lost their lives or been injured,” Merz said. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”The suspect was previously known to police, including for making threats, but “he has not previously been regarded as a particularly violent individual,” Schuol said.She added that the suspect did not have a firearms license and it was unclear how he obtained the weapon.Police said the man was a Turkish citizen, but was born in Germany.The girl’s mother told police after the shooting that she was no longer in a relationship with the suspect, Schuol said, adding that the young child had been placed in care as police question the mother and investigate the case.Lower Saxony Minister of the Interior Daniela Behrens described the killings as “extremely cold-blooded” and said that the “suffering that the perpetrator has caused here in Stade is difficult to comprehend and, I believe, even harder to put into words.”
