

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.


Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
A lone shooter in the town of Vernheim, in the state of Hessen, Germany, was killed after a short-lived standoff with police.
The masked and heavily armed man entered a movie theater around 3pm on Thursday afternoon and fired four shots, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The shooter barricaded himself in the cinema and took hostages.
The attacker was subsequently shot and killed by police, the Hessen interior minister confirmed to local media.
German outlets say that up to 50 cinema-goers were injured by tear gas, while English-speaking media were reporting that 25 were injured.
Die Zeit is reporting that no cinema visitors were shot.
The movie theater remains secured and surrounded by police forces, and the local police have requested a media blackout on the incident while they complete their investigation, FAZ reports.
It remains unclear whether the shooter's motives were ideological, personal, or whether he was simply mentally disturbed.
Germany has extremely tough gun laws, and mass shootings in the country are very rare.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
A lone shooter in the town of Vernheim, in the state of Hessen, Germany, was killed after a short-lived standoff with police.
The masked and heavily armed man entered a movie theater around 3pm on Thursday afternoon and fired four shots, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The shooter barricaded himself in the cinema and took hostages.
The attacker was subsequently shot and killed by police, the Hessen interior minister confirmed to local media.
German outlets say that up to 50 cinema-goers were injured by tear gas, while English-speaking media were reporting that 25 were injured.
Die Zeit is reporting that no cinema visitors were shot.
The movie theater remains secured and surrounded by police forces, and the local police have requested a media blackout on the incident while they complete their investigation, FAZ reports.
It remains unclear whether the shooter's motives were ideological, personal, or whether he was simply mentally disturbed.
Germany has extremely tough gun laws, and mass shootings in the country are very rare.
A lone shooter in the town of Vernheim, in the state of Hessen, Germany, was killed after a short-lived standoff with police.
The masked and heavily armed man entered a movie theater around 3pm on Thursday afternoon and fired four shots, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The shooter barricaded himself in the cinema and took hostages.
The attacker was subsequently shot and killed by police, the Hessen interior minister confirmed to local media.
German outlets say that up to 50 cinema-goers were injured by tear gas, while English-speaking media were reporting that 25 were injured.
Die Zeit is reporting that no cinema visitors were shot.
The movie theater remains secured and surrounded by police forces, and the local police have requested a media blackout on the incident while they complete their investigation, FAZ reports.
It remains unclear whether the shooter's motives were ideological, personal, or whether he was simply mentally disturbed.
Germany has extremely tough gun laws, and mass shootings in the country are very rare.