A man opened fire at a courthouse in Bavaria yesterday, killing a female relative and seriously injuring two other people, German officials said. He then shot himself dead.
The shooting happened during a break in a hearing on an inheritance dispute at the administrative court in Landshut, some 75km northeast of Munich, police said.
The dispute apparently escalated outside the courtroom and the 60-year-old man, from nearby Dingolfing, pulled out a revolver.
He shot a woman in the head, and she later died of her injuries. Two other people involved in the proceedings, a man and a woman, suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries.
The gunman then went into another room and shot himself before emergency services arrived at the scene.
"The police did not fire a single shot," police spokesman Leonhard Mayer said.
Elisabeth Waitzinger, a court spokeswoman, said the gunman and his victim were related, but did not give more precise details.
There was no immediate information on the identity of the shooter or his motive. The identity of those injured also was not immediately clear.
Asked how the gunman was able to bring a weapon into the building, Waitzinger said there are no checks on people attending civil cases of the kind the court handles.
Mayer said there had been no warning of the shooting, which came "out of a blue sky." The court is located in a modern building outside the center of Landshut, a city of some 63,000 people.
Last month, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer killed nine students and three teachers at his former high school in Winnenden, in southwestern Germany, before fatally shooting three others.
Kretschmer then took his own life in an exchange of gunfire with police.
