Mass shooting (suspected terror attack) happening in Munich, Germany right now

[Iamhispurity]

There has been a mass shooting in Munich about an hour ago. The shooters are on the run. Three people have been confirmed dead. It is pure chaos. All puplic transport was shut down. The main train station has been evacuated. The police says, that there is a possibility this is an act of terror.

There was an isolated act of terror commited by a young man this week already. He injured four people on a train heading towards Wuerzburg, another bavarian town. 

As German woman who has several friends im Munich, this is scary.

[samurai_sarah]

Fellow German here. I am shocked, outraged and so sad for all those affected. But mostly I am furious. I am so sick and tired of checking whether friends and family are still alive. I am angry that thinking "Is friend/family still alive" and trying to contact them has become normal. This shouldn't be normal. Paris, Islamabad, Brussels, Nice, London, New York, Istanbul and so on, and so on.

And I am angry that I feel so betrayed. This isn't about me. But I am furious. I caught the tail-end of the Cold War as a child. I was promised a better world. I believed that with all my heart. But my heart breaks again. And the worst about all of this is the word "again". Again, all I can do is grieve.

Again people die, and their loved ones suffer. For what?

[PennySycamore]

@Iamhispurity, I am so sorry that this craziness has spread to modern Germany.  I hope your friends are all OK.

[prayawaythefundie]

fjer from munich here: i am safe. so is all family. mom was very close to the scene, ran away and is safe for now. can't go home though as police recommends to stay off the streets in all of munich.

[nastyhobbitses]

I found out because a guy I hooked up with while backpacking posted "I'm OK, stay safe everyone". Thank god he was nowhere near Munich (he studies there). Just...ugh, can't the terrorists, whatever their I-need-to-murder-dozens-of-people bugaboo is, take a fucking break? Give the rest of us a break? I'm just so tired of seeing "mass shooting/bombing/explosion/knife rampage/truck rampage/some dude is just punching people in the face because he doesn't like that they don't follow his particular worldview in [Major City]" as a headline every day. I'm tired of going through my mental Rolodex and wondering if any of my friends or loved ones could be there. I'm tired of realizing that some dude I banged four months ago could have been lying on the ground dead had he not been on a trip this week. I'm tired of seeing pictures of little dead girls draped in space blankets, little dead boys lying on beaches, people holding candlelight vigils because some asshole with a grudge and a rifle/truck/knife/bomb decided that the best way to air grievances is to ruin everyone's lives.

[mausi]

57 minutes ago, prayawaythefundie said:

fjer from munich here: i am safe. so is all family. mom was very close to the scene, ran away and is safe for now. can't go home though as police recommends to stay off the streets in all of munich.

Glad to hear it. My people are all safe too. Stay safe -- you and yours.

My soul hurts.

[fraurosena]

Six people confirmed dead right now. Six innocent people, just going about there business, shopping. Whatever did they do to deserve this?

And what I'd really like to know is where are these idiots getting their weapons from? 

[RosyDaisy]

Thoughts and prayers for Germany.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Now police is saying nine. It's heartbreaking. This horror is spreading. 

I hope all of you are safe with your families. I don't remenber who else is from Munich, @JillyO @morri?

[Gobsmacked]

2 hours ago, prayawaythefundie said:

fjer from munich here: i am safe. so is all family. mom was very close to the scene, ran away and is safe for now. can't go home though as police recommends to stay off the streets in all of munich.

Hope you and your Mum are ok and with family. Sending hugs to you both.

[Mecca]

Excuse my rant, but.....

I am absolutely freaking sick and tired of turning on the news and these types of stories are now commonplace and numbing. People just living their lives, hanging out only to be gunned down by some fool with an agenda. It makes me sick. It makes me angry. It worries me. People should be able to go to McDonalds for a burger and not expect to be gunned down.

How sad is it that we now live in a world where you have to search for exits in movie theaters, malls, night clubs, cafes and be vigilant of your surroundings at all times because you just never know when someone is going to show up and murder numerous people? 

What are we turing into? When will it stop? When will the hate just stop? 

I am so sorry, people of Munich. My heart aches for you. 

[Gemini]

I don't even know what to say, it's just all so senseless.

To those from Germany who have replied, I'm so glad to hear you are safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MyMilkshake]

This is the first time where friends I know used the facebook safety check feature. I'm relieved to see they've checked in and are safe and okay, but I feel shaken up knowing that they are going through this. One friend of mine says it feels like she's living in a war zone. And she said she's always felt safe in Munich before this.

[FrumperedCat]

The police have now said that they think it was just the one shooter and that they've recovered his body. They also say he killed himself. No justice which so often seems to be the case with the recent terrorist attacks.

[prayawaythefundie]

Thank you, everyone. My mom just arrived at her home. She had been hiding in a kindergarten near the mall for hours. The children and adults from that kindergarten are all home and safe now. My heart goes out to the families who were not as lucky tonight.

[JillyO]

Thank you for thinking of me, @laPapessaGiovanna. I'm safely home in Berlin and don't have any family in Munich. My friends in Munich have all marked themselves safe on Facebook.

I think I'm just numb at this point. Why does this keep happening?

 

[Clementine]

I'm so fucking tired of having to write #prayfor/insert town/ every damn week. Sending my condolences to our German posters.

 

11 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Six people confirmed dead right now. Six innocent people, just going about there business, shopping. Whatever did they do to deserve this?

And what I'd really like to know is where are these idiots getting their weapons from? 

Weapons and hand granades are flooding into Europe from the Balkans. The EU obviously has no control over the outer border and once the goods are inside the EU, there are no border controls thanks to the Schengen agreement.
So drugs, weapons and terrorists can get into the EU and move freely without any problems. If you wonder why so many Europeans don't like and don't trust the EU, that is one valid reason.

[SrMaryEloquentia]

Another German here, about 2 hours from Munich. Frankly, I'm rather surprised, we didn't get hit for so long. Thank you all for your thoughts and sympathetic comments so far...

Apparently the police did quite a good job last night updating the public in real life via Twitter, and one thing they emphasized was not to post pics/videos of the shooter.  This sort of thing might be closer to the dynamics of an amok shooting than about political extremism - in very broad strokes, if you're a suicidal / homocidal maniac screaming for attention, ISIS is for you.

So, I'm worried, that every time something like that happens, and we all react and express our feelings and change our Facebook profile and post in online forums - we actually feed the next killer's expectation of "making a difference" or "teach everyone a lesson" or promoting "God's will" by spreading fear and terror.

And yes, I do realize, that I just posted a comment online. 

What do you all think? Should we continue discussing these events? What about media coverage? Maybe we could agree on a policy similar to covering suicides - be brief and matter of fact, never depict the deed as exciting or even heroic, so not encourage anyone else? 

[MatthewDuggar]

As of this morning the motive is still unclear.   Not only am I sick of hearing these reports of shooting on a weekly basis, but I'm rather upset how desensitized they have made me.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

According to Italian news that cited as source the local police this wasn't a terrorist attack. The shooter was a German 18yo with a history of inpatient treatments for mental illnesses who felt an outsider among his peers and was often bullied and reportedly often repeated to his teasers that he would kill them all. Police said that he tried to lure people publishing on FB a post with promises of free food for that afternoon. 

It seems he wanted to emulate another guy that in 2009 killed 15 people, it also seems that he admired Breivik and his actions.

 

[Gobbles]

That in 2009 was very close to were I live. School shooting but he flew and shot other people. 

Watched the press conference earlier today. Most of the victims were teenagers. No sign of terrorism or ISIS. He was in treatment for something with depressions (they did not say what exactly). They found a book about mass shootings at his home. (Called "Amok im Kopf".) 

As much as I hate people talking bad about first-person-shooting-games or people with psychiatric disorder (there was some talk about that already and also after Winnenden 2009) I prefer that instead of talking about "dangerous refugees". 

 

[mango_fandango]

Yeah. Police are now saying it wasn't an IS thing, but linked to Anders Breivik. Yesterday was the five-year anniversary of that incident. When I saw about the five year anniversary I immediately thought it could be some Breivik thing.

There are some right assholes in the world. Ich denke an alle, die in München leben. 

ETA: Translation- "I think of all who live in Munich"

[samira_catlover]

17 hours ago, RosyDaisy said:

Thoughts and prayers for Germany.

Can I modify this, hon? Thoughts and prayers for the whole world.

I am getting so damned sick of reading the paper or going online and hearing of yet another mass murder spree.

STOP THE VIOLENCE! 

14 hours ago, MyMilkshake said:

This is the first time where friends I know used the facebook safety check feature. I'm relieved to see they've checked in and are safe and okay, but I feel shaken up knowing that they are going through this. One friend of mine says it feels like she's living in a war zone. And she said she's always felt safe in Munich before this.

And I am REALLY saddened that the safety check-in feature HAS to be used for mass violence, instead of just reporting in after natural disasters.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, Gobbles said:

As much as I hate people talking bad about first-person-shooting-games or people with psychiatric disorder (there was some talk about that already and also after Winnenden 2009) I prefer that instead of talking about "dangerous refugees". 

I think that Munich going into complete shut down over this speaks volumes of the level of paranoia over terrorism we've reached. To be clear, I absolutely approve the reaction of the authorities, after what happened in Paris it would be moronic to not react in this way. But we are at a point that whatever happens the first thought is: terrorism, ISIS! And the second is: stop immigration,  send away refugees, higher security, borders, stop Schengen etc. Then when they find out it's not ISIS  people start saying that this sort of violence used to be only in America, here it never happened yadda yadda. That it's the immigrants fault, that Muslims are terrorists etc. Am I the only one who thinks that this is all bullshit? Radicalisms, fundamentalisms (Baader-Meinhof, Brigate Rosse, IRA, ETA) and deranged loners always existed in our societies, terrorist fundamentalism wasn’t invented by ISIS or Al Quaeda.

[SrMaryEloquentia]

2 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

I think that Munich going into complete shut down over this speaks volumes of the level of paranoia over terrorism we've reached. To be clear, I absolutely approve the reaction of the authorities, after what happened in Paris it would be moronic to not react in this way. But we are at a point that whatever happens the first thought is: terrorism, ISIS! And the second is: stop immigration,  send away refugees, higher security, borders, stop Schengen etc. Then when they find out it's not ISIS  people start saying that this sort of violence used to be only in America, here it never happened yadda yadda. That it's the immigrants fault, that Muslims are terrorists etc. Am I the only one who thinks that this is all bullshit? Radicalisms, fundamentalisms (Baader-Meinhof, Brigate Rosse, IRA, ETA) and deranged loners always existed in our societies, terrorist fundamentalism wasn’t invented by ISIS or Al Quaeda.

Couldn't agree more on everything above, but especially the bold part, which is exactly the premature conclusion I jumped to earlier today. Wrongly, as by now things look like the shooter was acting on his own accord.

As to your argument of radicalism being nothing new: You're right, Papessa, but that does nothing to reassure me. This sort of terrorism reminds me of the anarchists who tried to destabilize Europe around the turn of the last century to bring about a communist revolution. They targeted an astounding amount of statesmen, dignitaries and royalty now largely forgotten but for the shooting of Austria's crown prince in Belgrade in 1914. The result was the First World War, something everyone later claimed "had just happened".

I've been a politically thinking person since the fall of the Berlin Wall when I was 11, and I've never been so worried.