The shooting took place at a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall in the Gross Borstel district at around 9 p.m. local time (0800 UTC/GMT).


"The dead all have gunshot wounds," a police spokesperson said, without confirming the exact number of victims.


Police were alerted to the incident at about 9:15 p.m. and arrived at the scene quickly because they were "coincidentally very, very near," a spokesperson said.


Police said the background and potential motive behind the shooting, at a Jehovah's Witnesses event, were unclear.


Police spokesman Holger Vehren that after officers arrived and found people with apparent gunshot wounds on the ground floor, they heard a shot from an upper floor and found a fatally wounded person upstairs.


That individual may have been the shooter, Vehren said, and the police did not need to use their firearms.


Vehren said there was no indication that a shooter was on the run. He said it appeared likely that the perpetrator was either in the building or among the dead.


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