Bloomberg

Four People Dead After Explosion, Hospital Shooting in Germany

September 19, 2010, 6:26 PM EDT

By Tony Czuczka
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Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A woman with a shotgun opened fire in a German hospital, killing a male nurse, after she was seen running from a burning house where another man and a child were killed, authorities said.

Investigators suspect the woman was responsible for all three killings yesterday in Loerrach, a city in southern Germany on the Swiss border, state prosecutor Dieter Inhofer said on ARD television. The woman died in an exchange of gunfire with police at the hospital that left one officer wounded, he said.

“We believe there is a link” between the killings, Inhofer said late yesterday. “As long as we haven’t identified the victims, we can’t say anything about the motive.”

Firefighters were alerted at about 6 p.m. local time after an explosion and gunfire at an apartment building near the hospital, Loerrach police said in a statement. A woman with a shotgun came out and ran into the hospital, the statement said. The bodies of a man and a child were found inside an apartment, Inhofer said.

“All we know is that after the explosion, the woman was observed going into the hospital and spraying the place with gunfire,” Inhofer said. “We don’t know yet why she went to the hospital.” Investigators are working on identifying the woman, he said.

--Editors: Ben Livesey, John Simpson

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Czuczka in Berlin at aczuczka@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net