Munich shooting: Attacker researched rampage killings, police say
Story highlights
- Neighbors identify 18-year-old attacker as Ali Sonboly
- Man had no connection to ISIS and no apparent political motive, police say
(CNN)The
teen gunman who killed nine people in a shooting rampage in Munich on
Friday was a mentally troubled individual who had extensively researched
spree killings and had no apparent links to ISIS, police said.
Speaking
at a press conference in the southern German city Saturday, police
officials said the 18-year-old lone attacker -- who died of a
self-inflicted gunshot wound -- had no political motivations, and no
references to religion had been found in documents in his home.
Rather,
investigators searching his belongings found numerous documents on
rampage killings, including a book entitled "Rampage in My Mind -- Why
Students Kill," said Robert Heimberger, president of the Bavarian State
Criminal Police Office.
Neighbors ID gunman
Neigbhors
told CNN that the 18-year-old who lived in the apartment searched by
police was Ali Sonboly. CNN's Atika Shubert interviewed people who live
in that building. In a press conference Saturday, German police said the
gunman's parents had been taken in for questioning.
Police have not named the attacker, but said he had dual German and Iranian nationality and was born and raised in Munich.
German
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Saturday it appeared that,
before the attack, the gunman had hacked a woman's Facebook account to
post a fake offer of free food at the McDonald's branch where the attack
began, to lure people to the scene. Investigators were still working to
confirm that, he said.
Police said there was also likely to be significance in the timing of the attack, five years to the day since Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, many of them attendees at a youth camp.
Munich
Police Chief Hubertus Andrae said both attacks had predominantly
targeted young people, with most of the victims in Munich in their
teens.
Attack targeted the young
Three
of the victims were 14, two were 15, one was 17 and another 19, while a
20-year-old and a 45-year-old were also killed. Three were female.
The
victims all were German nationals from the Munich area, officials said.
Turkey's Foreign Ministry said three of the victims were also Turkish
nationals, naming them as Sevda Dag, born in 1971; Can Leyla, born in
2001; and Selcuk Kilic, according to Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu news
agency.
Another of the victims was also a Greek citizen, Greece's Foreign Ministry said Saturday.
The attack left 27 people wounded, 10 of them with serious injuries, Andrae said.
Gunman's fatal wounds self-inflicted
The
gunman stormed the McDonald's outside the Olympia mall in Munich on
Friday evening, before continuing in to the shopping center, bringing
Germany's third-largest city to a standstill as residents were warned to
avoid public places and public transport was halted.
Authorities,
initially fearing three gunmen were on the loose, mounted a massive
operation involving 3,200 security personnel, and terrified shoppers
sought safety in strangers' homes.
Police engaged in a shootout with the gunman, whose
body was found near the scene of the attacks. An autopsy indicated he
died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police officials said.
No
suicide note had been found in the attacker's home, and the attacker's
parents were in too much of a state of shock to help police in their
investigations, officials said.
The
attacker used a 9 mm Glock 17 pistol that was likely obtained
illegally, because the serial number had been scratched off, and was
found with about 300 rounds of ammunition in his rucksack, police said.
Attacker not known to authoritiesh
De
Maiziere said there had been no previous police or intelligence agency
investigations into the attacker, the son of Shiite Muslims from Iran
who came to Germany as asylum seekers in the 1990s.
De Maiziere said there were indications the gunman had been bullied by his peers.
"We
know that in the apartment of the perpetrator, material was found which
leads to him being interested in those who go on a rampage," he said.
"We do not have any indications that would lead to international
terrorism."
The attacker had
received medical treatment for mental health issues, a police official
said, and in 2012 had been the victim of "bodily injury" in an incident
involving other young people.
Security jitters in Europe
The attack shook Europe after a spate of recent terror attacks on the continent, including the stabbing of passengers on a German train by a man who claimed to be inspired by ISIS, and the killing of 84 people in a deadly truck attack in Nice, France.
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel referenced the ongoing public anxieties over
the security climate as she expressed her condolences at a news
conference in Berlin after a security meeting Saturday.
"We
are mourning those who will never go back to their families," she said,
before addressing the bereaved families of the victims of Munich's
"night of horrors."
"We share your pain. We think of you. We suffer with you."
She went on to express her gratitude for German security forces.
"We live together in a liberal society. This freedom is our greatest strength," she said.
'He's ... killing the children'
A witness who was in the McDonald's restaurant said her son was in the bathroom with the gunman.
"That's where he loaded his weapon," said Lauretta, who only wanted to be identified by her first name.
She said she saw many young casualties.
"I
hear like an alarm and boom, boom, boom ... and he's still killing the
children. The children were sitting to eat. They can't run."
Lauretta said she heard the gunman say, "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great" in Arabic.
"I know this because I'm Muslim. I hear this and I only cry," she said.
'You will get it.'
Witness Huseyin Bayri said he was riding his bike outside the restaurant when he saw the attacker yelling.
"I heard a scream at first: 'You shitty ... foreigners. I am German. You will get it,'" Bayri said.
"And then the first shots were fired. And a boy of about 14 or 17 years of age ... collapsed, fell to the floor."
Bayri
jumped off his bike, crawled toward the wounded teenager and hid next
to him. He tried to reassure him as he pressed on his gunshot wounds to
stop the bleeding.
"The boy asked
for my help. I tried to talk with him, asked him his name, his age, if
he has a girlfriend," Bayri said. "I tried to make sure that he looked
at me, that his eyes are open."
The teen pleaded with Bayri to call an ambulance, but died just before it got there.
From eatery to mall
After
the shooting, the gunman moved across the street to the mall, which is
near the site of the 1972 Summer Olympics where Israeli athletes were
killed by Palestinian attackers.
Lynn Stein, who works in the mall, described a chaotic scene when gunfire erupted.
"People were very confused, and they were running and they were screaming," she said.
She saw someone lying on the floor of a store who appeared to be either dead or injured.
"There's a woman over them, crying," she said.
Verbal exchange
Photos and video posted on
social media showed a profanity-filled verbal exchange between a man on
the top level of a parking garage and another one on a balcony.
The
exchange, recorded on two camera phones, captured an intense
conversation that ended in gunfire. The man who appeared to be a shooter
said insulting things about Turks, did not espouse jihadist ideology
and spoke with a German accent.
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