A police operation is underway after gunfire erupted Friday at a shopping center in Munich, Germany. The shooting “looks like a terror attack,” a police representative said, and at least three attackers remain on the loose.
At least five people were killed in the shooting spree, police said. Authorities shut down public transportation and warned people to stay home or seek protection.
Here’s what we know so far:
• Shooting broke out at a McDonald’s across from the Olympia shopping mall around 5:50 p.m. (11:50 a.m. ET), police spokeswoman Claudia Küntzel said. Gunfire also broke out inside the mall, witnesses said.
• On Facebook, police said gunfire was reported in several locations, and that witnesses report seeing three people with firearms.
• “The manhunt is underway at high speed,” police said. “Because of the unclear situation we ask all people in the city area to stay at home or to look for protection in any nearby building. The operation of public transportation service has been stopped.”
• The Olympia mall, located in a middle-class neighborhood in northern Munich, is the city’s biggest shopping center. It’s located near a large BMW factory and is a popular destination for shoppers on Friday nights, German lawmaker Charles Huber told CNN. It’s also near a major transit hub.
• Lauraetta Januze told CNN her son was in a bathroom with a shooter at the McDonald’s. “That’s where he loaded his weapon,” she said. “Boom, boom, boom, I heard, and then I saw all the injured. I was back to back with him, I was in the bathroom with my kid, and I only saw him shoot directly into the faces of children.”
• Lynn Stein, who said she works at the Jack Wolfskin store in the mall, said she heard six of seven shots inside the mall. “People were very confused, and they were running and they were screaming,” she said. She said she saw someone lying on the floor of a store who appeared to be either dead or injured. “There’s a woman over them, crying.”
• Outside the mall, she said, police ran with large guns and told people to clear the area.
• Thamina Stoll told CNN she was with her grandmother, who lives about three minutes away from the mall: “There were like 50 people running towards our house to seek shelter, and there was a helicopter circling above us for about 20 minutes and sirens. And there’s still people walking on the streets, they’re confused, and nobody knows what’s really going on.”
• The shooting comes as recent terror attacks have put Europe on high alert. A truck plowed into a crowd of Bastille Day revelers in Nice, France, last week, killing more than 80 people. This week, a teenager who said he was inspired by ISIS stabbed passengers on a German train before police shot him dead.