Shooting in Stade: six employees dead in youth centre, perpetrator detained
A 45-year-old man killed six employees at a reception centre in Stade, near Hamburg. The primary suspect was detained shortly after the attack.
Six dead in shooting at reception centre in Stade, northern Germany
A shooting in the German city of Stade, which has around 50,000 inhabitants and is located near Hamburg, left six people dead and several wounded on Monday at a youth and social assistance centre, according to police. The primary suspect was detained following the attack.
According to lavanguardia.com, the perpetrator—a 45-year-old man of Turkish origin with German nationality—had an appointment at the centre on the same day to discuss custody of his three-month-old daughter, who was there with her mother. Neither the child nor the mother were injured.
The six victims were employees of the residential facility. Four women and one man died at the scene; a sixth worker, also a man, died later from serious wounds sustained. The baby's mother and another woman who was driving a vehicle were taken into police custody, although not formally arrested.
A local police spokesman characterised the incident, according to news agency AFP, as a "family tragedy in the broad sense of the term". "This is not a femicide or anything like that," the same spokesman added, alluding to a link between the perpetrator and the centre without providing further details.
Authorities initially detained two suspects, but later clarified that "the primary suspect has been detained". A statement issued late in the afternoon noted that "two other people are the subject of police proceedings" whilst their possible involvement in the crime is investigated. Law enforcement stressed that there is no longer a danger to the population.
The exact age of the victims is unknown, although German tabloid Bild suggested that all were adults. According to publicly available information, a reception centre for pregnant women, mothers with young children and children under six years of age operates on Dankerstrasse, where the incident occurred.
Mass shootings are rare in Germany. In 2023, an armed man killed six people in Hamburg before taking his own life in a Jehovah's Witnesses building. In 2016, an 18-year-old German-Iranian young man murdered at least nine people in Munich.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)