Germany: Suspect in cinema incident dead, no others injured

Authorities say man held hostages with a weapon that may not have been functional, appeared confused; motive unclear

By AP 23 June 2016, 7:16 pm

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Police officers stand in front of a cinema in Viernheim near Mannheim, southern Germany, Thursday, June 23, 2016, where a gunman was shot after he took hostages in the complex (Boris Roessler/dpa via AP)

BERLIN — A masked man was shot dead Thursday after entering a movie theater in southwestern Germany with what appeared to be a rifle and taking several hostages, authorities said. No one else was hurt.

The armed man entered the Kinopolis movie theater in the early afternoon in the town of Viernheim and apparently fired a gun.

The man held several hostages, police spokeswoman Christiane Kobus said, but she didn’t have a precise number.

Officers “successively entered the cinema and were able to locate the man and the people he was holding,” Kobus told The Associated Press. “There was a threat situation and the man was then shot dead by a colleague.”

Police said that the deployment lasted about three hours. There were no other injuries, Kobus said.

She added that she had no information on the assailant’s identity and motives.

Hesse state’s interior minister, Peter Beuth, said it wasn’t clear whether the weapon was functional. He told the regional legislature in Wiesbaden that the man was masked and that apparently four shots were fired.

Beuth said the man had given a confused impression, news agency dpa reported.

Nina Reininger, a prosecutor in nearby Darmstadt, said her office was investigating but she has no information so far on the attacker’s identity.