Germany: the alleged perpetrator of a shooting that left six dead in a reception center for mothers committed suicide in prison

The alleged perpetrator of a shooting in Germany in a reception center for mothers, which left six dead in June, committed suicide in prison, the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice announced on Tuesday, July 21. He was discovered in the early morning, “without body temperature”, during a routine check by an officer at Bremervörde prison. Less than half an hour later, an emergency doctor pronounced him dead “by strangulation”.

“At present, the evidence we have suggests it was suicide. There is currently no evidence suggesting the involvement of a third person,” according to the ministry press release.

On June 29, this individual killed four women and two men by opening fire in a reception center for mothers and children in Stade, a town in the north of the country. The victims were child protection social workers, authorities said.

A Turkish citizen, born in Germany and living in Hanover, 200 km further south, the suspect was known to the police, notably for threats, but he was not considered “violent”.

The trail of “family tragedy”

According to the elements of the investigation communicated by Kathrin Schuol, the director of the Lüneburg police station, it seems that the suspect had an appointment that day “with several of the victims in order to discuss the custody of his three-month-old daughter, who was on the premises with her mother”.

The shooter then tried to flee in a car driven by a 65-year-old woman with “a close connection” to her family. Police opened fire on the vehicle but the two passengers were not shot. They were then taken into custody, and the shooter placed in the Bremervörde penitentiary establishment.

During the press conference, the region’s Interior Minister, Daniela Behrens, described the shooting “for family reasons” as an “act of violence of extreme cruelty”.

The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, denounced X as a “horrible act of violence” and said he was “deeply shocked by the scale of violence in a space supposed to offer protection”.