Six people have been killed in a shooting at a youth welfare facility in the town of Stade to the west of Hamburg, German police said on Monday, with five dying at the scene and a sixth succumbing to their injuries in hospital.
One main suspect - the suspected shooter - has been detained, a police spokesman said. Two further individuals remain subject to police measures after the incident in Stade in the northern German state of Lower Saxony, the police added. "Their involvement in the act is the subject of the investigation," the police headquarters in the town of Lüneburg said in a statement.
A press conference with police, the Stade public prosecutor's office, the Stade district authority and Lower Saxon Interior Minister Daniela Behrens was announced for 7:30 pm (1730 GMT).
"There are several people who have been injured, some of them seriously," a police spokeswoman told dpa, adding that it could not be ruled out that the death toll could rise further.
According to the police, the five people who died at the scene in Stade were four adult women and one man.
The killing took place at a youth welfare facility that houses mother-and-child residential groups, police said. Investigators initially gave no further details on the identities of the victims or the suspects.
The background to the violent crime remains entirely unclear.
Police and emergency services have deployed in large numbers. They called on people to leave the affected area and follow the instructions of emergency personnel. "There is currently no further danger to the public," the police spokeswoman stressed.
Images from around the scene showed numerous emergency vehicles and rescue workers. Forensic officers in white overalls were also present.
A spokesman for the city of Stade said there had been no danger to a nursery and a primary school near the youth welfare facility, and that the shots had not been audible there.
The city had immediately made contact with the facilities after the first reports came in. The nursery children had been inside the building at the time of the shooting, the spokesman said. Parents were subsequently able to collect their school-age children.
Stade has a population of just under 48,700 and is located roughly 40 kilometres west of Hamburg.
