President Barack Obama has responded to the shootings in Munich, Germany, that left at least eight people dead and 10 injured.
Obama delivered a brief update to reporters at the White House on Friday afternoon, July 22, about the shooting that left Munich on lockdown.
The Bild newspaper reported that eight people were killed in several locations, including a shopping mall. According to German website TZ.de, as many as three suspects may have been involved, and the situation is still volatile.
“Some of you are aware there were shootings in Germany. And we don’t yet know exactly what’s happening there, but obviously our hearts go out to those who may have been injured,” the president said, according to a video feed of his statement.
“It’s still an active situation and Germany’s one of our closest allies. So we are going to pledge all the support they may need in dealing with these circumstances,” he added.
Obama said it it’s a reminder that terrorism threatens “our way of life.”
“Our freedoms,” he added, “our ability to go about our business every day, raising our kids.”
“And seeing them grow up and graduate from high school, and now about to leave their dad,” he then said as the room erupted into laughter.
“I’m sorry. I’m getting a little too personal. Getting a little too personal there,” the president said, referring to his daughter Malia going away to college. Malia will attend Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2017, according to a White House statement posted in May.
Obama then returned to the subject of the shootings after the brief moment of levity.
“That depends on law enforcement,” he said. “It depends on the men and women in uniform every single day, who are under some of the most adverse circumstances imaginable at times, making sure to keep us safe.”
Earlier on Friday, Obama responded to claims made during Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention in Ohio on Thursday night.
“This idea that America is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn’t really jibe with the experience of most people,” Obama said in a press conference alongside Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto at the White House.
“I think it is important to be absolutely clear here. Some of the fears that were expressed throughout the week just don’t jibe with the facts,” he said. “America is much less violent than it was 20 or 30 years ago.”
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