Father shoots six dead at Stade youth facility after custody meeting, six staff killed
A 45-year-old man shot six employees dead inside a mother-child facility in Stade on Monday before fleeing in a car driven by a female relative, police said. The suspected motive is a custody dispute over his three-month-old daughter.
The attack
At about noon on 29 June, a 45-year-old man opened fire in a private youth welfare facility on Dankersstraße in Stade, Lower Saxony. The institution offers assisted living for young mothers and their children, and the facility was being used by the Hannover youth welfare office to house the suspect’s three-month-old daughter and the child’s 34-year-old mother.
The shooting happened during a scheduled assistance-plan meeting attended by staff from the facility and the youth welfare office. Police received several emergency calls around 12:10. Officers arrived quickly from a nearby station and found four people already dead at the scene; a fifth victim died despite resuscitation efforts, and a sixth succumbed to injuries later at hospital. All six victims were adults: four women and two men, all either employees of the facility or of the youth welfare office.
Several other people were injured, some seriously. None of the residents, including the suspect’s daughter and her mother, were physically harmed.
- Scheduled custody meeting begins at the mother-child facility
- Police receive multiple emergency calls reporting gunfire
- Suspect flees in car; police stop vehicle on B73 and arrest suspect and driver; six deaths later confirmed
Suspect and motive
The motive presumably lies in the family environment, that is, in a custody dispute.
The suspect is a German citizen born in Germany with Turkish roots, living in the Hannover area. He had been known to police but, according to Lüneburg police president Kathrin Schuol, “had not previously been regarded as absolutely violent.” He did not hold a weapons licence. Investigators have declined to specify the type of weapon, stating that forensic work is ongoing.
The child had been removed from the family home. Under court-imposed conditions she was allowed to return to her mother, but only at the Stade facility, not at her Hannover address. Because the father was considered “conspicuous,” the custody meeting was convened with a large number of participants present.
Escape and arrest
Immediately after the shooting the suspect got into a Mercedes SUV as a passenger, driven by a woman reported to be either 55 or 65 years old. The woman is a close family member, police said. Officers intercepted the vehicle and fired at its tyres, bringing it to a halt on the B73 highway several kilometres outside Stade. Both the suspect and the driver were taken into custody, and a weapon was recovered.
The child’s mother was also taken into police custody for questioning, but police stressed she is not considered a suspect. The infant was placed in the care of the youth welfare office.
Reactions
The news from Stade shakes me to the core. My sympathies are with the victims and their families.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz posted on X that many people “who wanted to help and protect” had lost their lives or were injured. Lower Saxony’s Premier Olaf Lies said the whole state government was deeply affected and thanked the emergency services for “quick and resolute” action.
Interior Minister Daniela Behrens described the attack as a “cold-blooded act” with no political or economic background. On a press conference Monday evening she and police officials stressed there is no link to other criminal cases that have drawn attention to Stade in recent years.
