9 Dead in Shooting Rampage in Munich, Police Say

Possible psyop?

(nytimes) MUNICH — At least one gunman opened fire near a shopping mall in Munich just before 6 p.m. on Friday, killing eight people and wounding a number of others in an assault that the German police said they were treating as a suspected terrorist attack.

A manhunt shut down traffic and public transportation across Munich, Germany’s third-most-populous city and the capital of the state of Bavaria. Police said they had found the body of a ninth person near the mall, and were investigating the possibility that he was an attacker.

A state of emergency was declared in the city, plunging much of the metropolis into a desolate and fearful state of lockdown. As the transit system was shut down, commuters held their hands up in the air as they walked past police officers.

“At this point, we believe there are three perpetrators, there are conflicting reports, but there are as many as three perpetrators on the run,” said Marcus da Gloria Martins, a spokesman for the Munich police. He said the suspects were armed with “long guns.”

But a short while later, Peter Altmaier, the chief of staff for Chancellor Angela Merkel, said that security officials had specific information about only one individual, who was believed to be still at large. “We are certain about one person,” Mr. Altmaier said, adding that there was no information regarding the motive of the attack.

Police officers from Munich and from elsewhere in Bavaria flooded the city. An elite counterterrorism unit of the federal police has also been deployed to Munich, officials said.