Enlarge image

Holi cinema in Hamburg

Photo: Moritz Frankenberg/dpa

An armed man attacked the well-known Holi cinema in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel on Tuesday evening. According to the police, the perpetrator stormed into the checkout room at 8:05 p.m. with a pistol in his hand, threatened a 24-year-old employee and a 75-year-old customer with the firearm and demanded that the proceeds be handed over.

To emphasize his demands, the man is said to have fired a shot into the air. After taking the cash from the cash register, he fled. Several patrol cars were looking for him. A helicopter was also involved in the operation and circled over the area for hours - in vain. The man is still on the run, the police said.

Perpetrator suspected to be involved in further robberies

The robber is said to have stolen a sum in the low three-digit range. According to police, the suspect may have been involved in two other robberies on the same day. Accordingly, a couple was threatened with a gun in a stairwell in an apartment building nearby. After a brief scuffle the perpetrator fled on a bicycle.

According to initial findings from the criminal investigation service, a café in Eppendorf was also robbed in the evening. In this case, the armed perpetrator demanded that two employees hand over money. There was a scuffle with a 32-year-old employee, whereupon the robber fired a shot with his suspected blank gun. The perpetrator then fled on a bicycle with the stolen cash, also a low three-digit amount. The two employees were slightly injured.

Eyewitnesses describe perpetrators

The attack on the cinema occurred just under an hour later. Because the sequence of events and the descriptions of the perpetrators are similar in the cases, it is now being determined whether it could be the same man.

The perpetrator is described by witnesses as around 45 years old and 1.65 to 1.75 meters tall. At the time of the crime he was wearing a black coat or jacket, gloves and a hat.

Cinema operator “shocked and sad”

The traditional Holi cinema in Schlankreye belongs to the Cinemaxx group. At the time of the crime, the film “Poor Things” was showing, starring Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo. A Cinemaxx spokeswoman told the “Hamburger Morgenpost” that they were “shocked and sad” about the robberies. The safety and well-being of guests and colleagues “is very important to us, and we are relieved that no one was injured, at least physically.”

ala/dpa