One killed in Germany nightclub shooting

Police ruled out the incident as a terror attack

Forensic experts investigate the nightclub in the German city of Constance where a gunman opened fire early on July 30, 2017. Felix Kaestle / DPA via AP

One person was killed and four wounded when a gunman opened fire at a packed nightclub in southern Germany early on Sunday before being shot by police who ruled the incident out as a terror attack.
The 34-year-old man, identified as an Iraqi national, "was critically injured in a shoot-out with police officers as he left the disco, and later succumbed to his wounds in hospital", police said.
"We're not assuming that this is an act of terrorist violence," police spokesman Fritz Bezikofer said.
"The events in the disco and all the links are somewhat clearer and they actually rule out a terror background," he said, adding that the gunman was not an asylum seeker and had been living in Germany for some time.
Another police source said he could have been motivated by personal relationship issues.
Officers began receiving emergency calls from terrified clubbers at around 4.30am local time as the man began shooting in the nightclub heaving with "several hundred" people, said police.
One person was killed on the spot and three others seriously wounded in the club called "Grey", located in an industrial zone in Constance, a city on the banks of the eponymous lake near the Swiss border.
Shortly after the gunman left the building, he was shot by police. One officer was also injured in the exchange of fire.
Terrified nightclubbers had either fled the building or found a place to hide, police said, adding that the danger was now over.
Helicopters were circling overhead and special forces were also deployed to secure the site.
A witness told national news agency DPA that the attacker was shooting randomly at clubbers around him.
"The club was jam-packed," added the unnamed man, who said he had seen the attacker and fled quickly with his friends.
A bouncer at the site had sought to stop the attacker, but was himself injured by the man, local broadcaster SWR said, also reporting witnesses saying that the gunman was armed with an automatic pistol.
Police was unable to confirm the type of weapon used, but Mr Bezikofer said it was "not just a pistol, the talk is of a long weapon or an automatic pistol".
The shooting came just two days after Germany was shaken by a knife attack in the northern port city of Hamburg.
In that incident, a 26-year-old Palestinian killed one and injured six in an assault at a supermarket.
He was a known Islamist with psychological problems, and investigators say his motives remain unclear.
Germany has been on high alert over the threat of an extremist attack, especially since last December's lorry rampage through a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people.