Two people have been killed and four wounded in a nightclub shooting in the German city of Konstanz. Police have ruled out a connection to terrorism. The shooting began at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, with clubbers at the Grey nightclub making frantic calls to emergency services. The gunman, a 34-year-old Iraqi national who had been living in the Konstanz region for 15 years, was shot by police after leaving the disco immediately following the shootings, The Local reported. It is believed that the gunman was motivated to carry out the attack by personal issues, with police saying it could be the result of a “relationship dispute.”
In addition to police, it is also understood that special forces were mobilized to contain the gunman, with no fatal casualties suffered by police in their firefight with the perpetrator, but a police officer is reported to have been injured, according to the Daily Mail . It is thought that the policeman’s life was only saved by the helmet he was wearing, with the equipment deflecting a bullet which struck the officer. The nightclub was packed at the time of the shooting, with Konstanz’s location on the Swiss border drawing clubbers from both countries, and a student night believed to have been taking place. The attack comes just days after an attack in Hamburg on Friday, when a 26-year-old Palestinian Islamist stabbed a person to death in a supermarket and injured several others.
Witnesses in the nightclub have been relating their accounts of the horror that unfolded this morning, describing the gunman’s victims being “covered in blood,” and a barman describing how he opened an emergency exit allowing clubbers to make an escape. Other witnesses have detailed how they hid in the bathrooms to escape the shooting.
“I didn’t believe it and went out. But I heard shots and quickly ran back to the toilet and closed the door with another person. With us was a bouncer who was shot and he was bandaging the wound with a belt.”
Local police have taken to social media to stress that there is currently no danger in Konstanz following the gunman’s death.
https://www.facebook.com/stadt.konstanz/posts/1407478385954459
While the gunman’s motives are still unknown , it is thought that it may have something to do with events which took place at the disco earlier in the evening, stated Fritz Bezikofer, a spokesman for the Konstanz police, according to Reuters . The BBC reported that the attacker was armed with an M16 assault rifle and appeared to have knowledge of the use of such weaponry. The only death reported so far, other than the gunman, is a doorman for the club.
The shooting will make many remember the events of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, which saw 50 people killed, and of the 2016 Munich shooting, which killed 10. Police are currently investigating the Konstanz shooting, aiming to confirm the motives behind the attack.
[Featured image by franz12/Shutterstock]