Witnessing Jehovah’s Massacre in Hamburg: One Wounded Still in Danger

Five days after the shooting at the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Hamburg, six wounded are still in hospital. One of them is in acute mortal danger, Hamburg’s deputy head of state security Uwe Stockmann said at a press conference on Tuesday. In fact, Philipp F. killed seven people on Thursday evening, four men, two women and an unborn girl. He then committed suicide.

A total of nine people were physically injured, seven of them sustained gunshot wounds. Seven of the injured lived in Hamburg, two in Schleswig-Holstein, Stockmann said.

The search for the perpetrator continues. State security mainly wanted to clarify the why question. Philipp F. was a lonely perpetrator with psychological problems. There are no indications of his involvement in criminal structures or right-wing extremist networks, said the deputy head of state security.

After the crime, investigators found a total of 60 gun magazines that could be assigned to Philipp F. During a so-called retention check on the 35-year-old by two police officers on February 7, there were significantly fewer. Where he got the magazines from is still under investigation.

Meanwhile, Hamburg police chief Ralf Martin Meyer still sees no misconduct on the part of the weapons authority. After receiving an anonymous indication of possible mental illness and danger from the later perpetrator Philipp F., the authority acted within the legal possibilities and found no abnormalities, he said on Tuesday.

Although an investigation by the officials into a book by the perpetrator, in which he formulated confused religious statements about the murder of Jews by the National Socialists, was unsuccessful, he “couldn’t blame the employees.” said Meyer. According to him, the anonymous reference letter referred to the book. In a Google search, the officials only entered the name of the perpetrator and the search term ‘book’ and received no results.

It is right that “after such an act we critically ask ourselves: did the arms authority do everything right here?” said Senator Andy Grote (SPD) of the Interior. “After everything I’ve heard so far, I have no reason to doubt the assessment that a good job has been done here.”

(t-online/dpa)