On 22 July 2016, 18-year-old Ali David Sonboly carried out a shooting in the vicinity of the
Olympia shopping mall in the
Moosach district of
Munich, Germany.
[1][7]Ten people, including the perpetrator, were killed and 35 others were injured.
[3] Sonboly was a Munich-born
Iranian-German dual national. He died at the scene by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Shooting[edit]
At 17:52
CEST (15:52
UTC), a gunman opened fire at a McDonald's west of the Olympia shopping mall in
the Moosach district of
Munich, Germany. A video distributed online showed him firing at pedestrians outside McDonald's. The gunman then moved on to the shopping mall itself.
[12] Another video showed the gunman walking alone on the roof of a nearby parking garage before opening fire again.
[13] He was heard shouting "I am German" (
Ich bin Deutscher) and "I was born here" (
Ich bin hier geboren) after an onlooker shouted
anti-Turkish abuse at him
[14][15][16]
Authorities' response[edit]
Soon after, there was an urgent warning to avoid the
Karlsplatz ("Stachus"), where German media outlets reported multiple shootings and multiple attackers. Drivers were advised not to pick up any passengers. Later, police denied that there was a crime scene at Karlsplatz, though a mass panic was reported there. People in Munich were warned by the police to stay at home and avoid crowds and public squares.
[17][18]
Following initial reports of shots being fired, some 2,300 officers were deployed throughout Munich from the greater area and surrounding states. A manhunt was soon initiated. Munich police urged residents not to leave their homes until further notice.
[1][19] The
special operations police unit
GSG 9 was deployed.
[20] Other regions of Germany,
Austria, and
Switzerland were asked to assist in the investigation.
[8] A backpack was found apparently matching the one carried by the gunman at McDonald's. Police reportedly used a
robot to investigate it,
[21] and a total of 300 rounds were found inside.
[22] Police officials warned of "an acute terror situation" and initially thought that there were up to three attackers, but later confirmed that there was only one gunman.
[12][23]
Just before 20.30
CEST,
[12] the gunman was located about 1 km (0.6 mi) from the mall.
[14] He shot and
killed himself in front of two police officers.
[12]
Casualties[edit]
Nine victims and the perpetrator died in the incident, and another 35 were injured, four by gunshots.
[3] Three of the dead were females, and six were males.
[28][29][30][31][32] The victims were:
- Sevda DaÄŸ, 45, Turkish
- Hüseyin Dayıcık, 19, Greek
- Selçuk Kiliç, 15, Turkish
- Guilliano Kollmann, 18, German
- Can Leyla, 14, Turkish
- Roberto Rafael, 15, Hungarian
- Armela Segashi, 14, Albanian (Kosovo)
- Sabina Sulaj, 14, Albanian (Kosovo)
- Dijamant Zabergja, 21, German of Kosovan descent
There have been claims that Sonboly may have deliberately targeted people, especially teenagers, of Turkish and Arab origin, groups he apparently felt had picked on him at school.
[32] The state government said that the victims were not chosen in any way and Sonboly did not know any of them.
[33] Police thought it was a coincidence that several victims had a migrant background, as the McDonald's near the shopping mall was usually attended by foreigners.
[34] Two days after the shooting the father of Huseyin Dayicik died of a heart attack.
[35]
In preparation for admitting the injured, multiple hospitals called their medical staff for work outside normal working hours. A state of emergency was declared at the
Rechts der Isar Hospital, where an injured victim died.
[9]
Investigation[edit]
Munich police chief Hubertus Andrä said that the shooting appeared to be a "classic shooting rampage" and not terrorism.
[14] Police said that the gunman was obsessed with mass shootings, and that written material on such attacks was found in his room.
[13] Prosecutor Steinkraus Koch said that the suspect had a book about
school shootings called
Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters by Peter Langman.
[14] No references to religion had been found in documents in his home.
[36] Andrä said that there was an "obvious" link between the shooting and Friday's fifth anniversary of the
2011 Norway attacks committed by
Anders Behring Breivik.
[13][36][37] A police search of Sonboly's residence however did not find the manifesto written and distributed by Breivik.
[33] However, according to
Abendzeitung, they found Sonboly's own manifesto on his computer hard disk.
[38]
Police investigator Robert Heimberger said that the shooter appeared to have hacked a girl's
Facebook account in order to lure people to McDonald's with an offer of free food.
[39][40]
Authorities said that the gunman had been planning the shooting for a year and purchased the illegal pistol that he used on the
darknet.
[41][33] It was said to be a "reactivated"
Glock 17 9mm semi-automatic pistol that previously had been used as a theater prop.
[41][42][43] German police believe that the weapon may have originated in
Slovakia, and that the gun's serial number had been scratched off.
[41]
On July 25, Munich police announced the arrest of a 16-year-old Afghan friend of the perpetrator who was being investigated on suspicion of failing to report Sonboly's plans.
[33][44]
Perpetrator[edit]
German Interior Minister
Thomas de Maizière said that he was the son of
Shiite Muslims from
Iran who came to Germany as
asylum seekers in the 1990s.
[36][50]Sonboly's parents told police that their son had possibly converted to
Christianity, but he was not religious.
[51][52] Sonboly had a part-time job distributing a local free newspaper.
[53] Neighbors have described him as "polite"; "very friendly";
[54] "intelligent, quiet and shy"; "a decent, normal guy"; "a little lazy"; and lonely.
[6]
Police said that he had been in psychiatric care, where he was treated for
depression.
[13][14] Prosecutors said that he had been treated for two months in a mental care facility in 2015.
[33] De Maiziere said that he may have been
bullied by his peers,
[13][55] and police said that he had suffered "bodily injury" in an incident involving other young people in 2012.
[36] During the ordeal, Sonboly shouted that he had been bullied for seven years.
[56] A former classmate recalled, "We always mobbed him in school, and he always told us that he would kill us."
[57]
Sonboly had an obsession with mass shooters, including the perpetrator of the
Winnenden school shooting in 2009; he compiled a scrapbook of news clippings on mass shootings and owned several books on the matter.
[6][58] He also visited
Winnenden and took pictures there.
[59]
One of Sonboly's classmates said that Sonboly had changed his profile picture on the messaging service
WhatsApp to a photo of Norwegian terrorist
Anders Behring Breivik.
[55][58] Der Spiegel reports that according to a fellow video game player, Sonboly posted "Turkey=ISIS" in a message and that he admired Germany's hard-right
AfD party.
[60]
Reactions[edit]
Domestic[edit]
Bavarian State Police urged people not to publish any pictures or videos of the police action, in order to prevent the perpetrators from gaining information.
[61] They provided a special upload platform, which allows any witness to upload pictures, audio, or video recordings directly to assist in the investigation.
[62] Citizens of Munich also used the
Twitter hashtag #
offeneTür (open door) to tell people needing shelter where they could go.
[1]
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel turned to the victims' families in a press conference on 23 July by saying, "We suffer with you." She thanked the Munich residents who opened their doors for stranded people.
[63] Minister President
Horst Seehofer of
Bavaria urged to be "very cautious" with quick conclusions, but optimizations of the security forces had to be considered. He had been in the incident room personally on 22 July for four hours and thanked the forces for acting with "professionalism and calm". The Interior Minister of Bavaria,
Joachim Herrmann, proposed an investigation regarding why there were so many false alerts.
[64]
The German Depression-Help Trust (
Stiftung Deutsche Depressionshilfe) warned of stigmatizing mentally ill people in reaction to the shooting. Ulrich Hegerl, chairman of the Trust and director of
Leipzig University Psychiatry, said the school was sure that depression was not the cause for the perpetrator's actions, as such a diagnosis would not have necessarily played a role.
[65]
International[edit]
The
U.S. Department of State warned Americans abroad to "shelter in place."
[66] President
Barack Obama said in a statement that he pledged support for those affected by the attacks.
[21] Obama also said, "We don't yet know exactly what's happening there, but obviously our hearts go out to those who may have been injured."
[67][68]
Czech Republic Interior Minister
Milan Chovanec said his country will reinforce its borders to prevent the perpetrator(s) from fleeing into that country, according to German television station
n-tv.
[8] The Czech
Foreign Ministry urged Czechs to avoid public places and set up an emergency hotline.
[69] Minister of Foreign Affairs
LubomÃr Zaorálek condemned the shooting on Twitter.
[70]
The Iranian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack. The Ministry's spokeperson, Bahram Ghassemi, expressed condolences to the German government and nation, saying, "The killing of innocent and defenseless civilians has marked another blot on the human history".
[71][72]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
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External links[edit]
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