Two employees of an external service provider were shot, one fatally, by a 53-year-old perpetrator at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen, southern Germany on Thursday. The incident occurred at around 7:45 am local time and the shooter was immediately apprehended by security guards and handed over to the police. The police have confirmed that the situation is under control and there is no longer any danger to employees at the plant. Mercedes-Benz has suspended work until the end of the week in the affected part of the factory, while the rest continues to operate as normal.
The motive for the attack is still under investigation by the police. The victims of the shooting were both 44 years old and the perpetrator was also an employee of the same external service provider. The company has expressed its condolences to the victims' families and colleagues. Mercedes-Benz is the longest-running factory of the automaker and employs 35,000 people.
Germany has strict gun control laws, and shootings are rarer than in the United States. However, in recent years, there have been incidents of mass shootings in the country. In February 2022, a gunman killed six people, including an unborn child, at a Jehovah’s Witnesses center in Hamburg, before taking his own life. In January 2022, one person was killed and three others were injured after a man opened fire on students in a lecture hall at Heidelberg University. In 2020, a mass shooting at two shisha bars in Hanau killed several people.
The German government has tightened its gun laws in recent years, requiring citizens to have a weapons possession card to own or buy a gun and a weapons license to use or carry a loaded gun. These measures were introduced following the school shooting in Erfurt in 2003, which left 16 people dead.