Hamburg: Children detained over threats at two schools

A police officer at the school in the Blankenese district

Four children aged 12 to 14 have been arrested by police in northern Germany after threats were made against teachers in two schools in Hamburg.

Police were called to a school in the Blankenese area of western Hamburg on Wednesday following reports of a female teacher being threatened with a gun in front of students.

Roads were blocked and armed officers went into the school.

No-one was hurt in the school, which has about 1,100 pupils.

A police spokesman said that officers had responded to reports that two boys had entered a classroom with a firearm shortly before 11:00 (10:00 GMT). The pair were then said to have left the classroom and fled.

However, the headteacher told pupils and teachers to lock themselves into their classrooms. "I was in a meeting and got a call from daughter who was crying," one father told public broadcaster NDR.

Then at around 15:00, after searching the school, armed police escorted some of the students to a nearby barracks to be collected by their parents.

It was not until Wednesday evening that a second school had been involved, in the Bahrenfeld district a few kilometres further into the city. Again nobody was hurt in the incident that unfolded shortly before 15:00.

Police said that as part of the search at the second school, plain-clothes officers then detained two boys aged 12, and another two aged 13 and 14 and seized what appeared to be two toy guns.

They said one of the 12-year-olds and the 13-year-old were being linked to the morning incident in Blankenese.