Berlin/London(CNN) Two Men died after a shootout at a Mercedes-Benz plant in southern Germany’s Sindelfingen on Thursday, police and companies said.
The perpetrator, a 53-year-old man, had been arrested and there was no longer any danger for the employees in the plant, the Ludwigsburg police said Twitter. Police officials said the incident was not a “rampage”.
One of the men died in hospital after being seriously injured in the incident, police added. Nobody else was harmed.
According to Mercedes-Benz, the two 44-year-old victims of the shooting and the perpetrator were employed by an external service provider.
Police said they are still investigating the motive for the attack, which took place around 7:45 a.m. local time (1:45 a.m. ET).
The shooter “broke into the factory building and shot at two people. Security forces arrested the suspect and handed him over to the police, who met no resistance to their arrest,” the police said in a statement.
“The factory floor has been evacuated and the workers are currently being looked after by the police and company support staff.”
Mercedes-Benz said in a statement that work in the affected part of the factory was suspended until the end of the week. The rest of the facility continues to run “on schedule,” the company added.
“We are deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic news from Sindelfingen this morning. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and all local colleagues.”
Founded in 1915, the Sindelfingen site is the automaker’s longest-established factory and employs 35,000 people, according to the company’s website. It produces the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and S-Class.
Shootings in Germany
Shootings are rarer in Germany than in the United States, but Thursday’s incident came just two months after a gunman killed six people and an unborn child at a Jehovah’s Witnesses center in Hamburg before turning the gun on himself .
Gun control laws mean firearms are largely kept away from the public, and these laws have been tightened in recent years after several shootings.
German citizens need a gun owner’s license to own or buy a gun and a gun license to carry or carry a loaded gun.
A new gun law was introduced in 2003 after a shooting at a school in Erfurt that killed 16 people. In January 2022, one person was killed and three others injured after a man opened fire on students in a lecture hall at Heidelberg University in south-west Germany.
And in 2020, several people died in a mass shooting in two shisha bars in Hanau.