http://nypost.com/2016/07/22/deadly-shooting-reported-at-munich-shopping-center/
Kids among 8 dead in Munich shopping center shooting
By Yaron Steinbuch and Danika Fears
July 22, 2016 | 12:49pm | Updated
A major Munich shopping area was targeted in a terror attack that left at least 8 people dead on Friday — including children who were gunned down as they ate inside a McDonald’s, authorities and witnesses said.
A chilling 30-second video showed a man near the fast-food restaurant shoot at a crowd of people clustered on the sidewalk around 6 p.m. local time. As the staccato of automatic gunfire erupts, people can be seen scattering in panic.
Inside the eatery, horrified witnesses watched as the gunman set his sights on the most helpless victims.
“Boom, boom, boom, I heard, and then I saw all the injured,” a witness inside the McDonald’s named Lauretta told CNN.
“I was in the bathroom with my kid, and I only saw him shoot directly into the faces of children,” said Lauretta, who watched the shooter load his weapon. The children were sitting to eat. They can’t run.”
She was also sure she heard him shout “Alahu Akbar!”
“I know this because I’m Muslim,” she said. “ I hear this and I only cry.”
Police officers provide cover as other officers escort people from inside the shopping center in Munich on July 22, 2016.
Photo: Getty Images
It’s been a bloody summer of ISIS-inspired terror across the globe, with major attacks in the US, France, Turkey and Bangladesh that have left at least 200 people dead.
In March, another 35 people were killed — including four Americans — during three coordinated suicide bombings in Belgium.
Germany has been on high alert since Monday, when a 17-year-old refugee armed with an ax and a knife stabbed five people in a train attack near Wuerzburg.
The teen yelled “Allahu Akbar!” during the attack.
Police said Friday that along with the eight fatalities, at least 10 more were injured in the shopping area gunfire.
One gunman also ran through the Olympia mall, which is near Munich’s Olympic stadium, firing on several people before fleeing toward a nearby subway station, the Bild newspaper reported.
Authorities shut down the transit system in Germany’s third-largest city amid a manhunt for up to three men armed with “long guns,” police said.
There had been no arrests Friday night, but authorities were investigating whether a man found dead in the area was the McDonald’s shooter.
He was a half-mile away from the shopping mall with a backpack, The Guardian reported. Police were sending in a robot to inspect his bag, worried that it could be loaded with explosives.
German news magazine Focus reported that a gunman had shot himself in the head.
Meanwhile, residents were urged to stay indoors while authorities searched for the suspects.
“We are telling the people of Munich there are shooters on the run who are dangerous,” police spokesman Marcus De Gloria Martins said, adding that there were conflicting reports about the number of gunmen.
The bloodshed began at a McDonald’s across the street from the Olympia Einkaufszentrum mall, where a shooter opened fire, sending people through the streets.
“If a man with a long gun in a shopping centre opens fire and eight people are dead, we have to work on the assumption that this was not a normal crime and was a terrorist act,” Martins said.
“If it turns out that there is a completely different background to this, then we certainly mobilized a lot of resources but we had a worst-case scenario covered.”
An uncomfirmed video appears to show a gunman clad in black on top of the shopping center’s rooftop and at one point declaring, “I’m German,” the Mirror reported.
Another witness, Luan Zequiri, told German broadcast N-tv that he heard the McDonald’s attacker yell a slur against foreigners.
“I looked in his direction and he shot two people on the stairs,” he said.
Witnesses inside the mall recalled a scene of utter chaos as shoppers went running for their lives at the sound of gunfire.
“I heard several shots,” Lynn Stein, who works at the Jack Wolfskin store, told CNN. “(I) was just going to buy something while my co-worker was still in the shop.”
“People started running. I went outside as well — more people running outside. I think I heard more shots. Then it sounded like he went to the parking house next to the mall — several shots there,” she continued.
“I saw … somebody lying on the floor, presumably dead, I don’t know. Or badly hurt. And there’s a woman over them, crying.”
President Obama pledged his support to Germany soon after the slaughter.
“We don’t yet know exactly what’s happening there, but obviously our hearts go out to those who may have been injured,” he said.
“It’s still an active situation, and Germany is one of our closest allies, and so we are going to pledge all of the support that they may need in dealing with these circumstances.”
Donald Trump also released a statement decrying the “horrible attacks.”
“This cannot continue,” he said. “The rise of terrorism threatens the way of life for all civilized people, and we must do everything in our power to keep it from our shores.”
While ISIS didn’t claim the rampage on social media, the terror group’s supporters celebrated it.
“The Islamic state is expanding in Europe,” one person tweeted.
