Cases
 |
Pre-reunification
1990s
1990
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990-10-11 | N.N. | 35 | Bremen | Bremen | A bank robber, a Spanish national from Hannover, pulled out a gas pistol after being apprehended by a SEK squad in Hemelingen. Two officers fired four warning shots before shooting the man four times in the right side of the foot, wrist and hip, killing him by a double piercing lungshot. [32] [33] |
| 1990-10-26 | N.N. | 34 | Erding | Bayern | While a plainclothed narcotics agent arrested a drug dealer, another suspected associate attempted to escape and was fatally shot as a result. In a confusing twist, it was found that the man was actually an undercover police investigator, with his reasons for trying to flee being a mystery. [32] |
| 1990-11-03 | Polley, Mike | 18 | Leipzig | Sachsen | During riots between two rival football hooligan groups and the police, one person was shot by the police. A total of 57 shots were fired. Four other people were also injured. The exact circumstances and whether the use of a firearm was justified are unclear. [34] |
| 1990-11-07 | S., Thomas | 26 | München | Bayern | A motorist pulled out a gas pistol at a traffic stop. An officer shot the motorist twice in the back of the head. It was found that he had a warrant for fraud and was driving a stolen car. [32] [35] |
| 1990-11-11 | Strauber, Gerd-Jürgen | 45 | Bad Camberg | Hessen | After killing his wife, a man opened fire at a random traffic checkpoint, heavily injuring a female police officer before he was shot and killed. [32] |
| 1990-12-03 | N.N. | 21 | Seevetal | Niedersachsen | During a burglary in Hittfeld, the home invaders were surprised by police, with a Yugoslavian member of the group stabbing one of the officers 13 times with a screwdriver. He was shot and killed by one of the other officers. [32] |
| 1990-12-19 | N.N. | 21 | Berlin | Berlin | Police were alerted to an "argument between Romanians" and during a routine ID check, a man shot a police officer in the face with a gas pistol at point blank range. A second officer fatally shot the man as he fled. His name was mistakenly recorded as "Perisor Dolj", after the birth place given in his buletin ([ localitatea]: Perișor; [ județ]: Dolj). [32] [36] |
1991
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991-01-01 | N.N. | 19 | Remseck | Baden-Württemberg | An American teenager with psychological issues heavily wounded both his parents in a sword attack at their home in the U.S. settlement of Pattonville and was shot by police when he charged at the officers while wielding two daggers. [37] |
| 1991-01-23 | N.N. | 20 | Sailauf | Bayern | A police patrol called to the scene of a family argument were threatened by a knife-wielding butcher and subsequently fired two fatal shots in self-defense. [37] [38] |
| 1991-06-21 | N.N. | 25 | Leipzig | Sachsen | As a group of skinheads were being arrested by police following a traffic stop due to possession of blunt weapons, one of the suspects was killed due to an accidental weapon discharge. An investigation was ultimately halted. [37] |
| 1991-06-24 | N.N. | Salzgitter | Niedersachsen | A police officer who was being forced into early retirement due to mental instability killed his son-in-law with a knife. The officer then threatened to kill his 18 month old grandson, leading to arriving police fatally shooting the offender after a shot in the leg proved ineffective. [37] | |
| N.N. | 50 | ||||
| 1991-09-05 | Henrich, Herbert | 38 | Kassel | Hessen | A convict who had escaped custody following a hostage situation during a doctor's office visit was being apprehended by police after female passerby recognized him. The convict immediately began threatening the officers with a gun and was killed in the following shootout. [37] |
| 1991-10-24 | N.N, | 20 | Samtens | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | A police patrol attempted to conduct a search on three youths sleeping inside at the bar of a night club. One of the men, a security guard, took out a gas pistol and shot at the officers, being shot and killed in return. [37] |
| 1991-11-05 | N.N. | 22 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Two undercover narcotics agents attempted to arrest a group of drug dealers during a sting operation. One of the men, a Yugoslavian national, fought with one of the agents and was shot in the head in the ensuing altercation. [37] |
| 1991-11-09 | Henschel, Roland | 30 | Lüdenscheid | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A bank robber was shot in the head by SEK as he was attempting to pull back into the building with a hostage after inspecting a getaway vehicle provided by police. The robber, who was out of prison on furlough, had held 20 people hostage for 21 hours and demanded ten million DM through a bank employee. The shooting was deemed justified by invoking a "fatal shot". [37] [39] [40] |
| 1991-12-19 | N.N. | 50-60 | Essen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A robber who had stolen money from a bank courier was caught by police after a one-hour manhunt. As he was being arrested, the robber produced a hand grenade and was subsequently shot; the grenade did not detonate. [37] |
1992
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992-01-19 | Sund, Peter | 24 | Bernburg | Sachsen-Anhalt | Two police officers were called to a break-in at a sales outlet. The unarmed burglar made insulting remarks as the police attempted to catch him and as he was being arrested, the burglar resisted and kicked at the air. Due to this, one officer who had been keeping his hand on his sidearm, allegedly lost his balance and stumbled over, inadvertently pulling the trigger on his holstered Makarov, shooting the burglar in the head. He was tried, but found not guilty on 23 November 1993. [41] |
| 1992-02-23 | N.N. | Stralsund | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | Two convicts escaped from a clinic through violent means. Both are caught shortly after, but one of the convicts is shot during the arrest. [42] | |
| 1992-04-10 | N.N. | 25 | Kelsterbach | Hessen | A burglar was killed by a ricocheting warning shot fired by police. There were conflicting accounts on whether the killed burglar and his accomplice had engaged the officers in a shootout beforehand. [42] |
| 1992-04-24 | N.N. | 59 | Bonn | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man suffering from health issues related to his alcoholism threatened other patients at a hospital in Medinghoven with a gun. He was killed when he fired on the arriving SEK officers, who found that his weapon had been a gas pistol. [42] [43] |
| 1992-06-03 | Mohamed, Osama | 22 | Hamburg | Hamburg | An Egyptian man was resisting his arrest for threatening a bus driver and rampaging in the vehicle's interior in Rahlstedt when he managed to grab the arresting officer's gun while inside his car and shot at him. The officer's female partner fired several shots at the offender, killing him. [42] [44] |
| 1992-07-29 | N.N. | Finsterwalde | Brandenburg | Police fatally shot a man in the chest after he had injured his wife with a gas pistol. [45] | |
| 1992-07-31 | N.N. | 26 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | A burglar tried to escape pursuing police by climbing a rain gutter and was shot during his attempt by an officer posted in the courtyard below. An investigation was launched, but no records exist of any officers being charged in relation to the death. [42] |
| 1992-08-03 | N.N. | 52 | Düren | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called to the site of a noise complaint when the man responsible for the noise suddenly lunged at the officer with two knives, forcing them to use deadly force. [42] [46] |
| 1992-10-16 | N.N. | c.35 | Körperich | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A trio of bank robbers were received by a troop of SEK officers as they had anticipated their plan in advance. The robbers threaten the officers with revolvers and hand grenades, leading them to fire on and kill one of the robbers. [42] |
| 1992-10-17 | N.N. | 67 | Kamen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Two police officers were called to act as intermediaries in a dispute over rent between a tenant and landlord. During the talk, the landlord suddenly produced a gun and shot the officer, heavily wounding him. He was subsequently shot and killed by the other officer. [42] |
| 1992-10-22 | N.N. | 19 | Stuttgart | Baden-Württemberg | A serial rapist went on a joyride on A8 following his latest rape, intentionally ramming several vehicles, including a police car. He was shot when he resisted arrest. [42] A news report indicates that the officer who fired the killings shots was 22 years old and sentenced to 16 months probation on 21 August 1998 for manslaughter. [47] |
| 1992-12-XX | Walz, Klaus | 50 | München | Bayern | Klaus Walz, alias Rainer Walldorf, a teacher and car dealer from Ettlingen who had a short-lived career in Formula 1 Larrousse, was wanted for false imprisonment of a French police officer and four counts of murder in France and Italy in connection to his alleged leadership of a Desio-based car smuggling ring. Walz was shot during a gunbattle with Munich police after they surrounded the hotel he was in. Some sources list his place of death as Monaco, as Munich is called Monaco (di Baviera) in Italian, which most of the reports about the case is written in. [48] |
1993
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993-01-21 | Schröder, Andreas | 26 | Bitterfeld | Sachsen-Anhalt | Police received report of a burglary happening at a fashion store. Upon their arrival, the three perpetrators ran from the plainclothed officers, who fired on them, hitting one of the burglars in the back. A trial was scheduled in relation to the death. [49] |
| 1993-01-22 | Radu, Lorin | 21 | Staßfurt | Sachsen-Anhalt | A Romanian man arrested on suspicion of theft and lacking residency papers attempted to flee the police station as he was being escorted to a toilet. The 53-year-old officer accompanying him shot the man twice in the back in the courtyard. The officer was fined 13.500 DM. [49] [50] |
| 1993-02-10 | Peischel, Martin | 22 | Wolfratshausen | Bayern | As police approached a suspicious vehicle for a search, the occupant attempted to drive off. When an officer broke the window on the driver's side with his sidearm, a gunshot discharged and killed the driver. [49] |
| 1993-02-19 | N.N. | 40 | Bad Salzungen | Thüringen | After a motorist knowingly drove away from a gas station without paying for his fuel, police set up a road stop, which the motorist broke through with his car. An officer shot at the fleeing car, fatally hitting the motorist in the back of the head. [49] |
| 1993-03-06 | Schiegnitz, Carl | 4 | Berlin | Berlin | A police van was responding to reports of a stabbing at Brandenburg Gate, which turned out to be a false alarm. On Schlossbrücke, the van skidded off the road on loose chippings after overtaking another car and impacted with five pedestrians (four members of a Marzahn family of six and a 41-year-old Lichtenberg man). The crash killed two children and heavily injured three adults, crippling one while another had been knocked into the Spree below; the couple's surviving children, aged 9 and 11, called medical assistance. The driver, 30-year-old officer Mike W., was flung through the windshield into a phone booth and heavily injured, while his passenger, 27-year old officer Hans F., suffered light injuries. W., who drove an excess speed of 70 km/h, claimed no memory of the incident and was found guilty of negligent homicide in December 1993, receiving seven months probation. F., who was not charged, was ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation for a 30 July 2003 incident, where he held his empty sidearm to the head of a motorist and a policewoman, both times pulling the trigger. [51] [52] [53] |
| Schiegnitz, Rosa | 6 | ||||
| 1993-03-11 | Mangaoglu, Ali | 41 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A diplomat with the Turkish consulate's attaché for Social and Religious Affairs was in St. Georg to visit Muslim locals for Ramadan when he got into an argument with a drunk man, 24-year-old Thorsten Jarling. A witness stated that the diplomat punched and kicked his opponent before shooting him twice with a .38 caliber revolver; Turkish diplomats in Germany were all required to carry firearms due to concerns over possible attacks by German-based members of the PKK. Two plainclothed policemen arrived at the scene after hearing the shots and found the diplomat kneeling over the other man. Upon noticing the officers, the diplomat pointed his gun at them, which prompted 26-year-old officer Peter Meyer to shoot the diplomat once in the chest, mortally wounding him. When the diplomat raised the gun again, the other officer fired two warning shots, rousing the other shot man, who stood up, stumbled two steps and collapsed dead just off the side walk. The diplomat died at a hospital from his injuries. The shooting led to outrage in Turkey, with news outlets comparing it to the murder of Mehmet Kaymakçı and the murder of Ramazan Avcı by Hamburg neo-Nazi gangs in 1985. Investigators initially suspected that the cause for the initial shooting had been a mugging and the diplomat had shot in self-defense, but also considered a possible drug deal gone wrong, as employees of the Turkish consulate were long suspected of narcotics trafficking under guidance of the MİT. The diplomat's family criticised police action, accusing them of misconduct, and in December 2023, his son publicly asked for witnesses to the shooting to come forwards with statements countering the official narrative. [54] [55] [56] [57] |
| 1993-04-20 | Wagner, Peter | 32 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | The arrest of a suspected arms dealer in Jungbusch resulted in a scuffle, during which an officer's sidearm went off and fatally struck another officer. [49] |
| 1993-05-31 | N.N. | 38 | Klausdorf | Schleswig-Holstein | During the chase of a suspect, the officer accidentally fired his weapon, striking and killing the suspect. [49] |
| 1993-06-14 | G., Walter | 46 | München | Bayern | Two and a half months into a police observation of two known repeat criminals, officers inform SEK of the suspects breaking into a building. As they moved in for an arrest, SEK officers believed they heard gunshots and shot back at the burglars, who were wielding gas pistols, killing one. [49] |
| 1993-06-30 | Romano, Andreas | 26 | Schönenberg-Kübelberg | Rheinland-Pfalz | Two police officers attempted to apprehend a Rom man wanted for an attempted murder. He was shot while fleeing after not reacting to a warning shot. The officers received death threats from the deceased's family afterwards and were put under personal protection as a result. [49] [58] |
| 1993-08-19 | Dittrich, Klaus-Heinz | 32 | Marienwerder | Brandenburg | An escaped criminal engaged two police cruisers in a car chase before ditching his vehicle in an attempt to cross the Oder-Havel Canal. Two officers shot him in the head, causing his death by drowning. The officers were cleared of all charges by appeal of the public prosecution. [49] [59] |
| 1993-10-10 | N.N. | 39 | Hamm | Nordrhein-Westfalen | SEK responded to a report by a resident complaining about a mentally ill man in early retirement making excessive noise in his next-door apartment. Upon forcing entry, the man non-fatally stabbed one of the officers in the neck with a knife before being gunned down. [49] |
| 1993-10-19 | Korcz, Robert | 27 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A Polish national occupied the Polish general consulate in Steilshoop to protest a conviction made by a court against him, claiming it showed Poland's "lack of democracy". As it was 2:30 in the morning, the building was mostly empty and fully evacuated shortly after he entered, but SEK were called as he was threatening to detonate a WWII-era grenade. SEK attempted to negotiate with the intoxicated man for nearly 15 hours and attempted to incapacitate him by siccing a police dog through a window while he was drinking more alcohol. The dog was injured by glass shards during entry, with its yelps alerting the man who reached for his grenade, causing the officers to fire five shots, one striking him through the hand and fatally hitting his heart. The deceased had been previously imprisoned at Rawicz prison for desertion of his SZ RP unit and staged at least two interrupted lock-on protests in 1988 and 1989 by chaining himself to a pylon for several days to raise awareness against prisoner abuse he experienced. After the abolition of the communist government, he continued to accuse the new administration of violating his freedoms. [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] |
| 1993-11-16 | N.N. | 34 | Kempten | Bayern | A varnish painter involved in an assault case was having his personal information recorded when he suddenly pulled out a dagger and tried to stab the officer, who then shot the varnisher twice with his service weapon. [49] |
| 1993-11-19 | N.N. | 28 | Siegsdorf | Bayern | A mentally ill man known for driving erratically into oncoming traffic tried to break through a road block while being pursued by police on A8. During his attempt, he was about to ram a police officer, but the officer's colleague fired five shots at the driver, killing him. [49] |
| 1993-12-03 | S., Enis | 26 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Police surrounded a post office in St. Georg during a robbery. The robber was shot when he emerged from the office and threatened officers with either a gun or a knife, leading to another opening fire. [49] [66] |
1994
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994-02-02 | N.N. | Wolfhagen | Hessen | An 18-year-old police recruit shot his father in his sleep with his service weapon. [47] | |
| 1994-02-25 | P., Christian | 18 | Wulkow | Brandenburg | Police find a car occupied by three sleeping men in a forest and identified their car as having been listed as stolen. During an attempted search, the men, all Romanian nationals, drove away from officers and after a warning shot, two officers fired two direct shots at the car. The body of the gunshot victim was then tossed from the vehicle by his companions. [67] [68] |
| 1994-03-10 | N.N. | 38 | Weiden | Bayern | During the arrest of two suspected drug dealers in a sting operation, a 24-year-old female officer accidentally shot one of the dealers' associates in his car. The associate was found to be an undercover police officer, who had been clearly identified as one throughout the operation. [67] [69] |
| 1994-03-16 | N.N. | 22 | Bad Endorf | Bayern | Following a car chase, the pursued vehicle crashed against a wall and during the attempted arrest of the driver, an asylum seeker from Kosova, he was killed when a 29-year-old officer discharged his sidearm. [45] [70] |
| 1994-04-14 | Müller, Jochen | 28 | Berlin | Berlin | A police officer foiled a burglary at the women's center in Berlin-Mitte and had arrested two of the three suspects. While searching for the third with his weapon drawn, the missing suspect attempted to attack the officer with a knife upon being found, being shot in the head at a distance of 50 cm. [71] [72] |
| 1994-06-16 | D., Sebastian | 19 | Kyritz | Brandenburg | 35-year-old plainclothed officer Gerald K. fired a warning shot in order to placate five Romanian burglars at a scene and alert his colleagues. When one of them attempted to escape, the officer beat him with his sidearm, during which a shot was fired by accident, killing the burglar. The officer was subsequently tried and sentenced to 8 months probation on 20 August 1996. [67] [73] [74] |
| 1994-06-30 | Dener, Halim | 16 | Hannover | Lower Saxony | Halim Dener, a Kurdish refugee from Turkey, was putting up flyers around Steintor for the German branch of the PKK (which had been recently declared a terrorist organization in Germany) as part of his activism in the Kurdish independence movement. The boy was seen by two plainclothed SEK officers, who restrained him when he attempted escape. An officer then dropped his service weapon and while picking it up, the gun went off, striking and killing Dener from a distance of 5–15 cm. No one was charged. [75] |
| 1994-07-06 | Piro, Antonio | 31 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Two robbers were fleeing from police after a botched hotel hold-up. One of the robbers, an Italian national, overpowered one of the pursuing officers and injured him with a gunshot. Another officer fatally shot the robber before he could finish off his colleague. [67] |
| 1994-07-12 | N.N. | 20 | Wiesbaden | Hessen | Two female police officers were pursuing a knife-wielding Bulgarian robber fleeing the scene of a crime. The robber eventually attacked the officers, leaving one with life-threatening injuries, before the other killed him with seven shots. [67] |
| 1994-08-30 | Bankole, Kola | 30 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | A Nigerian asylum seeker was slated for air deportation to Lagos and was gagged and tied to the seat of the grounded plane at Frankfurt Airport by four BGS officers. When a physician working for the police administered a sedative injection, Bankole died of asphyxiation due to the sedative and pressure on his chest exacerbating a pre-existing heart condition. Nigeria's then-Ambassador to Germany Akinjide Osuntokun subsequently alleged that 25 Nigerian citizens had died "in police custody or under dubious circumstances" in the country since 1991. An official investigation concluded that only three deaths (that of Bankole and two suicides) occurred in police custody, with Kola Bankole being the only one that could be directly correlated to police action. [76] [77] [78] |
| 1994-08-04 | N.N. | 32 | Lüdenscheid | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police engaged a Yugoslavian man in a car chase after he had threatened his girlfriend with a gun, during which he breaks through street blockades. Upon being forced to stop, an officer approached the vehicle to arrest the man and shot him when he threatened the officer's life with the gun in his possession. [67] |
| 1994-09-20 | N.N. | 37 | Konstanz | Baden-Württemberg | A man slated for confinement to a mental institution violently resisted during a preceding medical examination at a hospital and escaped the building. When police found the man hiding in a nearby garden, he stabbed one of the officers in the hand and was shot when he raised the knife again. [45] |
| 1994-11-20 | N.N. | 16 | Rodgau | Hessen | Police took notice of a vehicle that was reported as stolen being driven by three teenagers. When they attempted to stop the vehicle with a road block, the car tried to run down one of the officers, who was able to jump out of the way and shoot at the driver, killing him instantly. [67] [79] |
1995
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995-01-25 | Dobrick, Henner | 52 | München | Bayern | Reports of an individual aiming a handgun at passerby led police to storm the apartment of a man who had been described as "mentally unstable, but good-natured". The man was found hiding behind a closet door holding two pistols and after ignoring multiple warning shots, he was fatally shot three times by officers. The weapons in his hands were found to be toy guns. The deceased was an assistant director in German television, including Tatort, where he had a minor acting credit, and Marienhof. [80] [81] |
| 1995-02-11 | N., Sammy | 26 | München | Bayern | A Liberian asylum seeker was severely beaten by police officers while he resisted arrest at a container bay in Altstadt until he stopped moving and died at the scene. Police denied eyewitness reports that the man had been beaten bloody and stated that he had instead died after swallowing an unknown substance. [82] |
| 1995-03-13 | N.N. | 42 | Wuppertal | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Two police officers respond to a report of a man threatening a woman, his ex-partner, with a gun. The man subsequently shot at the female officer, injuring her lightly, before her male counterpart fatally shot the attacker. [80] |
| 1995-03-13 | N.N. | Speyer | Rheinland-Pfalz | A man was threatening his wife with a bread knife during an argument. The man then lunged at the first police officer who entered the room and was immediately shot by him. [80] | |
| 1995-03-13 | N.N. | 41 | Stuttgart | Baden-Württemberg | Police were called to deal with a rowdy customer at a radio store. The customer was able to snag a policewoman's sidearm and engaged the officers in a shootout while fleeing, eventually being shot. [80] |
| 1995-04-04 | N.N. | 35 | Selfkant | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A patrol car randomly passed by the scene of an active bank robbery in Süsterseel. One officer, 55-year old Norbert Domnick, attempted to enter the bank when one of the robbers stormed out to face him. Both were killed in the ensuing fire exchange. The second robber managed to escape while 40,000 DM were found on the deceased robber. Police connected the pair to at least four other robberies on the German-Dutch border. [45] [83] [84] |
| 1995-04-05 | N.N. | 30 | Wolfsburg | Niedersachsen | Police were called about a man holding a gun and a gas canister. When arrived, the man threw away the weapon in his hand and covered himself in the contents of the canister. When he pulled out another gun, later found to be a detailed gas pistol, officers shot him. [45] |
| 1995-04-06 | N.N. | 24 or 26 | Berlin | Berlin | Following a string of robberies targeting the same gas station in Tempelhof, five plainclothed police officers monitor the area. They were in the process of apprehending a robber who had attempted to flee the scene when he pulled out a gas pistol and began threatening one of the female officers, leading to him being shot from behind. The deceased, a Nigerian citizen, was suspected of having also been responsible for a robbery at another gas station in adjacent Schöneberg the prior day. [85] [86] [87] |
| 1995-05-11 | N.N. | 30 | Stendal | Sachsen-Anhalt | A man gained entry to the armory of a police station and immediately shot one of the officers there in the thigh. The other officers then opened fire on the intruder who died of his wounds shortly after. [80] |
| 1995-07-28 | Borichevski, Leonid | 31 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | During a sight-seeing tour in Messe, a passenger walked up to the front of the bus and shot the 26-year-old bus driver Raimund G. in the back of the head with a pistol, then dressed himself in tactical gear, including a balaclava and a vest adorned with fake explosives, taking the other 26 tourists hostage, with three escaping shortly after before he could tie them up by breaking the back window and jumping through onto the street. He then aimed at an eleven-year-old boy who tried to follow suit, but instead shot a 53-year-old Austrian national, Heinz Buchner, who yelled as a distraction, leaving him in critical condition from a pierced lung; both were able to flee the bus. During the 8 hour stand-off, the gunman claimed to be a member of the Russian mafia, forced hostages to take polaroid photos of him and injured a police officer with a shot in the stomach. Late into the hijacking, the gunman walked the aisle while asking the passengers for their nationality, fatally shooting a 64-year-old woman in the neck when she responded "Germany" and taking a picture of her corpse. The hijacker was shot and killed 40 minutes later when SEK stormed the bus. He was identified as a Russian-born Israeli national with a lengthy criminal record, including murder in the Soviet Union and check fraud of over $100,000 in both the United States and Germany. He was described by neighbours in Ramat Gan as "nervous, secretive" and an "absolute sadist". Investigators considered the possibility that he was a political extremist with anti-German sentiments, noting that he frequently spoke of the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre during the stand-off, but also considered mental illness, since he made no demands, even when provided with a Russian language interpreter, citing that the gunman had been previously discharged from the IDF on psychological grounds for assaulting a superior officer. [45] [88] [89] [90] [91] |
| 1995-08-17 | Ladwiniec, Adam | 54 | Hanerau-Hademarschen | Schleswig-Holstein | A car with a Polish license plate is stopped for a traffic check by plainclothed police. The driver, a Polish national, misunderstood the situation as a robbery, grabbed the gun of a 37-year old officer and shot him dead. The other officer then fatally shot the driver. [80] [92] |
| 1995-09-12 | N.N. | 36 | Artern | Thüringen | Police were in the process of arresting several men who they had just caught attempting to break into a supermarket. During the arrest of one, an officer's gun discharged and killed one of the suspects. The officer was tried for the death. [80] |
| 1995-09-14 | T., Bozkurt | 25 | Berlin | Berlin | A Turkish man wanted for a jewelry store robbery was stopped by police in Kreuzberg when they recognized his licence plate. The robber opened fire, endangering the lives of several passerby, and had to be gunned down by the officers. [80] [93] |
| 1995-09-22 | M., Manuell | 19 | München | Bayern | A gas station was being robbed in the early morning, during which the robber threatened a gas station attendant, a police officer working part-time there, with a gas pistol. The attendant made use of his service weapon and, after a short firefight, the robber was fatally shot in the head. [80] |
| 1995-10-17 | E., Reinhard | 40 | Kamp-Lintfort | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A call was placed asking for help from police, directing them to town center. There, the two arriving officers were immediately shot at by a gunman, whom they swiftly shot and killed. [80] |
| 1995-10-21 | N.N. | 36 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Two police officers responded to a call from a woman whose ex-boyfriend had broken into her apartment. Upon their arrival, they found both in the stairwell, with the woman fleeing downstairs while the man pointed a pistol at police, refusing several orders to put down the weapon and instead opening fire. He was subsequently shot by the officers. [45] |
| 1995-10-23 | N.N. | 63 | Hagen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | During a break-in at a warehouse, a burglar was locked in by the night-shift janitor, who then contacted police. As the officers searched the building, one of them was jumped by the burglar, the assault inadvertently causing the officer's gun to go off, killing the attacker. [45] |
| 1995-12-01 | N.N. | 16 | Speyer | Rheinland-Pfalz | After seven robberies targeting pizza delivery workers, a police officer went undercover to deliver a suspiciously placed order. At the location, the officer was confronted by a gun-wielding teenager demanding money from him. The officer emptied his gun into the robber, who turned out to have been carrying a gas pistol. [45] [94] |
| 1995-12-03 | N.N. | 43 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | SEK responded to a family dispute in Fechenheim between Serb Orthodox Christians and Serb Muslims. The presumed instigator was seen leaving the property as soon as police arrived. When officers attempted to stop him, he opened fire on them, hitting one in the calf before he was shot and killed by the other officers. [80] |
| 1995-12-03 | N.N. | Braunschweig | Niedersachsen | Police were called when a woman reported two possible burglars entering a toolshed on a neighbouring property. The officers were shot at upon arriving, leading to a shootout that left one of the burglars dead and one officer with life-threatening injuries. [45] | |
| 1995-12-07 | N.N. | 39 | Bottrop | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were about to search a man in his parked car on a footpath, when the driver drove away with the officers in pursuit, abandoning his car at a cul-de-sac. After the officers fired a warning shot, the man pulled out a submachine gun and shot at them several timees as he attempted to escape in a truck. Police returned fire, fatally injuring the man who was later found dead in a courtyard. [45] |
| 1995-12-08 | N.N. | 36 | München | Bayern | Police attempted to break up a family argument, which then escalated when the aggressor began firing wildly with a gun, killing a police dog, and ended up taking a police officer hostage. SEK stormed the premises and shot the offender, likely in an instance of a "fatal shot". [80] |
1996
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996-01-16 | N.N. | 38 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Turkish man was slashing at his wife with a butcher's knife on farm grounds. He was fatally injured by intervening police's gunfire. [95] |
| 1996-01-16 | Odabasi, Kenan | 21 | Bünde | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Turkish man with mental problems was threatening his family with a knife. SEK attempted to calm him down when he lunged at one of the officers and stabbed him, with his armor preventing injury. The attacker was then shot dead by another officer. [95] |
| 1996-02-06 | Finkl, Helmut | 25 | Dachau | Bayern | A suicidal man wearing tactical gear took 12 people hostage at a dentist's office with a gun and a fake handgrenade. During the phone negotiations via employees, the hostage-taker only demanded that a sniper be positioned outside the building. Around eight hours later, he released all but one of the hostages, a doctor's assistant and threatened to kill her if police didn't shoot him. SEK attempted to covertly secure the hostage from a room as the hostage-taker was distracted, but a noise gave them away and the two officers ended up firing four shots on the man to ensure their own safety; the gun turned out to be a gas pistol. [96] [97] |
| 1996-02-08 | N.N. | 44 | Berlin | Berlin | An inmate scheduled for surgery slipped out of his bindings and escaped his escorts. A 57-year old police officer gave chase and fired a warning shot before killing the inmate as he attempted to enter the Amrumer Straße U-Bahn entrance, also injuring a passerby in her calf. An investigation into the officer was halted when it was decided that the use of his fiream had been justified. [98] [99] |
| 1996-04-06 | K., Deniz | 25 | München | Bayern | A suspected drug dealer threatened a police officer with a gas pistol as he was being arrested during a drug raid. The officer's partner stated that he fired one shot at the suspect, killing him, yet medical examination showed that the victim had two gunshot wounds, with witnesses corroborating that two shots had been fired. The details remain unclear. [95] |
| 1996-04-08 | N.N. | 51 | Hürth | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A mentally ill man threatened his parents and arriving police with two sabres. Officers attempted to disarm the man by shooting him in the arms, instead resulting in his death. [95] |
| 1996-06-11 | Laurisch, Gabriele | 46 | Hebertshausen | Bayern | 36-year-old police officer Peter Roth killed his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. He convinced her to let him drive her to a stockbroker he knew for a lucrative investment. Roth forced her to drink roofied cocoa at gunpoint, then drove out to the woods, where he decapitated the unconscious woman, cut off her hands with an axe to delay identification and stole 130,000 DM she brought for the investment from her. Knowing that she had told her boyfriend about her whereabouts, Roth then drove to his house, claiming that she was at the hospital for a car accident and was going to drive him over. The boyfriend was also forced to drink the sedative and dismembered in the same woods, where he buried the body parts. The bodies were found on 11 July and Roth was apprehended eight days later. In July 1997, he was found guilty of two charges of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. [100] [101] |
| Keil, Thilo | 28 | ||||
| 1996-07-27 | N.N. | 18 | Münster | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A car thief was shot after leading police on a high-speed chase. The circumstances around the shooting were initially unclear, until a special commission found that the car thief had been killed as a result of an accidental discharge. [95] |
| 1996-08-31 | N.N. | 25 | Mühlacker | Baden-Württemberg | Two men attempted to defraud a gas station in Enzberg. During their escape from police, the men took a hostage. A fire exchange between them and the police killed one of the men and heavily injured the hostage. [95] [102] |
| 1996-10-03 | Grünewalt, Thomas | 36 | Karlsruhe | Baden-Württemberg | A 25-year old police officer accidentally shot and killed his superior during an unsanctioned target practice exercise because he had forgotten to unload his sidearm. [103] [104] [105] |
| 1996-10-04 | N.N. | 28 | Nürnberg | Bayern | During a routine check at Nürnberg train station, a Greek man fled from police. A 20-year-old policewoman fired at the man, fatally striking him in the back. On 24 January 1997, the officer was sentenced to pay a fine. [95] [47] |
| 1996-11-04 | N.N. | 34 | Burghausen | Bayern | A blackmailer who had demanded 450,000 DM from his former employer was chased into some nearby woods by a police officer following a ransom hand-off. During the arrest, the officer fired three shots at the blackmailer, one fatal, when he saw him carrying a gun, later identified as a gas pistol. It is uncertain whether the officer had been ordered to pursue the blackmailer after the ransom was paid. [95] [47] [106] |
| 1996-11-14 | Yaradan, Bahri | 25 | Fürth | Bayern | Police drove after a motorist that made a sudden U-turn upon seeing the officers' car. After a lengthy chase, police went to arrest the driver, a Turkish national, when "a shot discharged" from one of the officers' guns by accident and struck the motorist in the head. [95] |
1997
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997-01-26 | N.N. | 27 | Brigachtal | Baden-Württemberg | A man was killed by two shots by officers during a police operation. No more details were given and reports say that "closer circumstances were unclear". [107] |
| 1997-02-08 | N.N. | 23 | Fürstenwalde | Brandenburg | Six officers responded to a burglary report, startling the three perpetrators at the scene, who attempt to make a run for it. During the foot chase, an officer's gun accidentally went off, killing one of the burglars, a Romanian national. [107] [108] |
| 1997-02-11 | Geiger, Thomas | 29 | München | Bayern | Following a bank robbery, the robber was found by two officers at a S-Bahn station. He then pulled out a gun, leading to the officers firing a total of ten shots at him, with four hitting and killing the robber. The robber was presumed to have not fired a shot himself, as no recent traces of gunpowder were found on the weapon. [107] |
| 1997-02-28 | Warzywoda, Michael | 32 | Uhingen | Baden-Württemberg | A drunk driver with a suspended licence fled from a traffic stop, managing to evade four road blocks before being apprehended at the driveway of his home. According to later testimony, three officers approached the vehicle when one of them tripped and accidentally discharged a shot from his sidearm. The other officers, apparently assuming their colleague had been shot, each fired one shot at the driver as well. The projectiles fatally hit the man in the head, right thigh and right lower arm. The officers were investigated, starting on 8 March, to no result. [109] |
| 1997-03-15 | N.N. | 33 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | A 39-year-old police officer killed his ex-girlfriend, an Iranian national, with eight shots from his service weapon. He opened fire during a court hearing in Nordend over the officer being sued for alimony, also heavily injuring the deceased's 49-year-old lawyer with three shots and shooting at the judge who was unharmed. The officer was at the time also being tried for grievous bodily harm. [110] [111] |
| 1997-04-08 | N.N. | 29 | Stuttgart | Baden-Württemberg | During a manhunt for a bank robber in Hofen, the getaway vehicle of the robber was stopped by police as part of the search. The robber immediately fired on the parked police car with a shotgun, critically injuring a 21-year old officer, before his 32-year old partner shot the robber, who later died at a hospital of his wounds. The deceased had been recently released from prison after being paroled for committing a string of bank robberies since 1985. [107] [112] [113] |
| 1997-07-24 | H., Ernst | 34 | München | Bayern | Police were called to investigate reports of a suicide threat. Two officers were then threatened by the source of the threats, a mentally unstable man holding a butcher's knife, who then threatened the officers. The female officer shot the man in the throat, leading to his death at a hospital the same day. [107] |
| 1997-08-23 | N.N. | 35 | Berlin | Berlin | Three burglars attempted to run over a police officer patrolling an industrial quarter in Hohenschönhausen with a delivery van. The officer fired a shot at the driver's cabin and after the truck came to a halt, two of the men fled the vehicle while the third, a Polish national, slumped out of his seat onto the street, dying at the scene. [107] [114] |
| 1997-09-15 | N.N. | Bremen | Bremen | A bank robber wielding a sawn-off shotgun was engaged in a shootout with pursuing police in Neustadt. When the robber was cornered in a back alley, he again opened fire and was killed by the officers. [107] [115] | |
| 1997-10-16 | Geil, Herbert | 48 | Breitscheid | Hessen | A debtor in Erdbach was being made subject to eviction when he shot and killed 49 year old Bernd Dietermann, the bailiff enforcing the court order, with a sawn-off pump action shotgun. As Dietermann had been accompanied by four police officers to aid him in the eviction, the debtor was engaged in a shootout. After reportedly tossing his gun to the side to let officers arrest him, one officer fatally shot him in the back. [116] [117] |
| 1997-12-08 | Rose, Hans-Jürgen | 36 | Dessau | Sachsen-Anhalt | A machinist was held at the Dessau-Roßlau police station for drunk driving. Just under two hours after his recorded release, the man was found barely conscious and slumped over near a house entrance not far from the station and died in a hospital from internal hemorrhaging the same morning. His injuries included a torn off lung, a broken jaw, dislodged teeth, crushed testicles, and a shattered lumbar vertebra that exposed his spinal canal and had resulted in complete paraplegia. The severity of the injuries initially led medical attendees to believe he had been involved in a car collision or a fall from several stories, but no signs of any such accidents were found in the area. The officers who had last seen the deceased suggested that he may have sustained his wounds by leaping from a window. The coroner subsequently opined that due to parallel patterns of the bruises he found during his medical examination that the deceased was tied to a pillar and beaten with metal batons at the station. Investigations were ceased in October 2002 and a renewed investigation again ended in February 2014. Dessau-Roßlau police station later became embroiled in more misconduct scandals, including the 2002 death of Mario Bichtemann, who died in a cell from head trauma after being booked for public intoxication, the 2005 death of Oury Jalloh and the suspected obstruction of justice by married police officers Ramone and Jörg S., who was station chief at the time, regarding the investigation into the 2016 murder of Yangjie Li, in which their son Sebastian Flech was found to be the perpetrator. [118] [119] [120] |
| 1997-12-19 | N.N. | 39 | Egelsbach | Hessen | Two police officers were responding to a call of domestic violence. When one officer left the room with the 33-year old wife, the husband, a Croatian national, shot remaining policeman, 36-year-old Heinz-Peter Braun. Upon hearing the commotion, the other officer returned and killed the husband when the weapon was aimed at him. The injured officer died of his wounds in a hospital. [107] [121] |
| 1997-12-20 | N.N. | 43 | Straubing | Bayern | A man rampaging through a street while wielding a gas pistol was shot by a police officer. The report was left undetailed, but police stated that the officer acted in self-defense. [107] |
| 1997-12-28 | N.N. | 70 | Ingolstadt | Bayern | Police responded to a call by a woman asking for help over her husband, who was "going on a rampage" in their home. The arriving officers were attacked by the knife-wielding husband, leading to one firing a shot in the man's thigh in "evident self-defense". The husband died of blood loss in a hospital. [107] |
1998
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998-01-12 | N.N. | Hünxe | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A police officer was shot at while conducting a traffic stop on a parking lot at A3. The occupant of the car he was checking had opened fire and hit him in the legs and chest. The shooter was killed when the officer returned fire. [122] [123] | |
| 1998-01-25 | N.N. | 68 | Ludwigshafen | Rheinland-Pfalz | Several passerby alert police that they had been shot at by someone inside a nearby apartment building. When officers knocked on the door of the flat in question, the man opening it immediately fired at them with a blank gun. One officer then fatally shot the man. [122] [124] |
| 1998-01-29 | N.N. | 22 | Florstadt | Hessen | A neighbour called police over a break-in happening at the post office by her residence in Nieder-Florstadt. Police presence caused the three attempted safecrackers to flee and during the chase, a female officer fired a shot that killed one of the burglars. [122] [125] |
| 1998-04-06 | Petrović, Mile | 37 | Düsseldorf | Nordrhein-Westfalen | SEK were raiding the last known place of residence of a Yugoslavian national, wanted for violent offenses. The offender immediately fired at them when they entered and was shot seven times in return. Police found a hand grenade within arm's length by the offender, who died in a hospital later that day. [122] [126] |
| 1998-04-07 | N.N. | 15 | Hofheim | Hessen | A 21-year-old police officer killed his teenage brother through an accidental discharge of his service weapon. [47] |
| 1998-04-13 | N.N. | 25 | Bad Klosterlausnitz | Thüringen | 32-year-old LKA police officer Enrico E. killed the fiancé of his stepdaughter with at least two shots in the neck and back. Enrico E. had been sexually abusing his two younger daughters, aged 12 and 13, and was confronted about this by his future son-in-law, as well as the 45-year-old mother of the girls. After the killing, the officer fled to Bavaria via A8 and was surrounded at a rest stop in Traunstein district. He critically injured a 45-year-old police officer with a gunshot and was able to escape after briefly taking a 28-year-old man hostage. Following extensive negotiations over radio, the officer surrendered in Piding, ending the 13-hour rampage. On 6 May 1999, Enrico E. was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, attempted manslaughter, kidnapping, dangerous assault, and rape. [127] [128] [129] |
| 1998-10-30 | N.N. | Plaaz | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | A man fired several shots at the house of his ex-wife and fled when police arrived. He proceeded to take potshots at the pursuing squad car and was then shot by the officers. [122] | |
| 1998-11-28 | T., Robert | 48 | München | Bayern | A man called police as his younger brother, who was schizophrenic and suffering from paranoid persecutory delusions, was threatening to kill himself. Shouts for help led officers to forcefully enter the apartment in Maxvorstadt, where they found the brother stabbing the caller with a bread knife. The brother then charged at the officers and when tear gas proved ineffective, 23-year old police officer Martina Drosta fired two shots at the attacker. One bullet pierced through the target and struck the caller standing behind him in the head. The attacker died of his injuries in a hospital a few hours later. The officer, who had finished training only weeks earlier, was retired and treated for PTSD in the following years, publishing a memoir about the incident in 2009. In 2010, the Bavarian state demanded that two grantees of the deceased brothers' will, their two U.S. and Israel-based aunts, pay 70,000 euro to compensate the government for the officer's treatment, holding them accountable as the closest relatives of the attacker. [122] [130] [131] [132] [133] |
| T., Leon | 51 | ||||
| 1998-12-25 | N.N. | 23 | Grüne | Sachsen | A woman called police over an escalating argument with her partner. The partner ended up being shot by police under unclear circumstances. [122] |
1999
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999-01-17 | N.N. | 19 | Karlsruhe | Baden-Württemberg | Being on high alert following a string of bank robberies, a car was stopped by the police. The driver, identified as the wanted robber, attempted to escape but was later stopped again. One officer opened fire, killing the driver. A gas pistol was found in the car. [94] [134] |
| 1999-03-25 | N.N. | 44 | Ennigerloh | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A mentally ill person attacked his sister with an axe. When police arrived he was shot to protect the relative's life. [134] [45] |
| 1999-04-13 | N.N. | 41 | Lambrecht | Rheinland-Pfalz | A drunk man rioted inside his apartment and started a fire. When police arrived, he attacked them with a metal rod. He was shot and later died in hospital. [134] [135] |
| 1999-04-16 | H., Xhevdet | 26 | Neuberg | Hessen | A make-shift alarm system alerted the operators of a kiosk when they heard voices through a baby monitor at night, leading to them calling police. When officers arrived at the scene, the four burglars, later identified as Yugoslavian nationals, emerged and ran into different directions. One of the younger men was found hiding behind a hedge and ran at a 33-year old officer while holding a piece of metal. After repeated warnings, the man was shot in the shoulder at point blank range, with the bullet ricocheting and fatally severing his aorta. The remaining three were caught in the area and Frankfurt, being identified as ethnic Kosovo Albanians who were part of the same family (two brothers and their adult sons). [134] [136] |
| 1999-04-24 | N.N. | 22 | Bad Arolsen | Hessen | A burglar who was being arrested by police officers grabbed a crowbar and attacked police. He was shot in the chest and died in the ambulance. [134] [137] |
| 1999-05-28 | Ageeb, Aamir | 30 | German airspace, Flight LH588 | Deutschland | A Sudanese citizen who resisted his deportation, Ageeb was killed due to positional asphyxia caused by fixation. Three Bundesgrenzschutz officers were charged with voluntary manslaughter, but remained in office due to a reduced sentence. In the aftermath, the fixation techniques that were used, have been declared to be torture by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture. [138] [139] [140] |
| 1999-06-11 | Z., Saffet | 43 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A Turkish man was rioting in his house in Eimsbüttel. When police arrived he injured an officer with a knife and was shot by another officer. [134] [141] |
| 1999-06-29 | B., Thomas | 29 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Residents of an apartment complex in Hummelsbüttel called police to report a noise complaint. The prior day, someone had reported female screaming from the same flat, but the woman inside had assured officers that nothing had occurred. This time, when four officers rang the bell, the door was opened by a man with a switchblade in his hand, who immediately shut the door on them. While the officers attempted to kick it down, the man suddenly flung the door open and attacked. Two officers were holding him back and ordering to drop the knife when he again lunged at an officer, being shot by two of them and dying at the scene. The deceased was later found to be a known drug addict. [134] [141] |
| 1999-06-27 | Beate, Friedhelm | 62 | Heldrungen | Thüringen | Hotel visitors mistakenly identified another guest, a hiker from Cologne, as fugitive murderer and serial robber Dieter Zurwehme, who killed four people that recognised him while on the run. Two plainclothed officers, aged 30 and 44, had the receptionist call out for the guest through the door and when the man peeked through the frame to see the two armed men outside in place of the employee, he shut the door to prevent believing the officers to be robbers. Police fired twice through the door, killing the man with a shot in the heart. The case against the shooters was dropped. [142] |
| 1999-07-23 | Hammerschmidt, Udo | 41 | Hamburg | Hamburg | MEK raided an apartment in Eimsbüttel after an anonymous tip-off that accused the tenant of running a large-scale cocaine and marijuana dealing operation. Police broke open the door with a battering ram at night and shot the tenant twice in the stomach when he pointed a gas pistol at him. He later died in a hospital. Although the deceased had been previously convicted of drug and theft offenses, only 13 grams of hashish were found. The gas pistol had been legally in his possession, having bought it after a break-in. Two acquaintances who stayed over the night of the shooting also said that officers had neglected to turn on the light or identify themselves. [134] [143] [144] |
| 1999-08-09 | K., Maik | 22 | Magdeburg | Sachsen-Anhalt | SEK raided the apartment of a serial robber who had killed a 29-year old man in a retail store. Even though the police officers used stun grenades, they were shot at seven times with a revolver, heavily wounding one SEK officer despite wearing a bullet-proof vest. The attacker was hit twice and mortally wounded in the ensuing shootout. [134] [145] [146] |
| 1999-09-01 | H., André | 28 | Berlin | Berlin | Police were engaged in a car chase with a serial robber who had held up a post office in Tetlow when it came to a shootout in Zehlendorf. The robber was able to escape and was later found dead, having succumbed to three gunshot wounds he sustained in the firefight, including one that pierced his lungs. He was identified as a former Berlin-Tempelhof police officer who had quit the force in February of the same year after 12 years of service. A 20-year old accomplice was later arrested while an ex-colleague was investigated, but ultimately not charged. [134] [147] [148] |
| 1999-09-06 | N.N. | 40 | Bremen | Bremen | A person called the police on an unknown man with a knife who was sneaking around their house. When police encountered the man, he stabbed one officer and was shot several times. He died at the scene. The background of the incident are unclear. [134] |
| 1999-09-09 | Schüssler, Patrick | 14 | Uelzen | Niedersachsen | 48-year old officer Klaus-Henning O. was driving home drunk from work with his private vehicle and struck a teenage cyclist while driving 90 km/h. The youth was killed instantly and flung from the street along with his bike. Witnesses recounted that the officer exited his car to assess the damage to the bonnet for a few minutes before driving off again. O. was arrested the next morning, admitting to drinking on the job and attested a 2 blood alcohol level, but claiming no memory of the incident. His trial was delayed until 2003 and resolved in 2005. For negligent homicide, he was sentenced to fines of 4,500 euro for drunk driving and hit-and-run, and an additional 5,000 euro as pain and suffering to the deceased's parents. [149] |
| 1999-10-15 | N.N. | 43 | Passau | Bayern | When police attempted to bring an aggressive man under control, he pulled out a knife and attacked an officer. He was shot and died. [134] |
| 1999-11-24 | N.N. | 25 | Geldern | Nordrhein-Westfalen | When police encountered a presumed robber, he flew. When not responding to calls for him to stop, he was shot in the head from behind. [134] |
| 1999-12-07 | N.N. | 31 | Braunschweig | Niedersachsen | A man injured two neighbors with a knife. When police officers tried to arrest him, he attacked them and was hit by police gunshots. [134] |
| 1999-12-10 | Dimitrov, Zdravko Nikolov | 36 | Braunschweig | Niedersachsen | A physicist with Bulgarian citizenship, Zdravko Nikolov Dimitrov was to be transported to Bulgaria after his application for asylum was denied. When he announced to kill himself, police officers called for assistance by the SEK. When the specially trained officers approached Dr. Dimitrov, he presumably attacked them with a knife. He was shot and died in hospital ten days later. [134] |
| 1999-12-13 | N.N. | 45 | Siegen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | After a shootout in front of a nightclub, police raided the apartment of a suspect. In a melee with the suspect's father, a shot discharged from an officer's service pistol, hitting the man in the head. [134] |
| 1999-12-22 | Hodzic, Adnan | 46 | Aachen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Aachen hostage crisis : On 20 December, a Bosnian national with a prior record for false imprisonment, robbery and jailbreak robbed a bank at gunpoint and wielding hand grenades, but because he found the money inside the vault insufficient, he took three employees, the head of an armored car company, one of their drivers and a secretary, demanding 1 million mark. Over the course of the 50 hour hostage crisis, he repeatedly shot at police and to raise pressure, he critically injured the 30-year-old driver, who was tied to a pipe in a standing position and had a live grenade hung around his neck, with three gunshots. On the second night, the robber accidentally detonated one of the grenades after experiencing micro sleep due to staying awake for over a day, injuring the 30-year-old secretary with shrapnel. After intensive negotiation he was shot by a police marksman. [134] [150] |
| 1999-12-28 | N.N. | 69 | Darmstadt | Hessen | A retired man threatened people in the city center with a gun. When police officers arrived, he shot at them and was injured by a police bullet. He died two weeks later in a hospital. It is unclear whether the wound from the bullet caused his death. [134] |
2000s
2000
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000-01-24 | N.N. | 52 | Schleiden | Nordrhein-Westfalen | In a state of confusion, a farmer and hunter in Dreiborn shot at a man and then at arriving police officers with a shotgun. An officer shot the farmer three times in the pelvis area, severing several arteries and his lungs. Despite several successful surgeries, the farmer died of a pulmonary embolism at a hospital on 20 February. [45] [151] |
| 2000-01-27 | N.N. | 40 | Mengen | Baden-Württemberg | A robber fled a supermarket with 10,000 DM and was arrested by police shortly after. He pointed his gun at the officers, who proceeded to shoot him two times. [151] |
| 2000-03-06 | N.N. | 24 | Nürnberg | Bayern | A man who had been previously convicted of several crimes and did not return from prison furlough attempted to leave a gas station in Biebelried without paying the bill of 40 DM. A scan of the licence plate also found that it had been stolen from a different vehicle. He led five squad cars on a high-speed chase for over 90 km across A3 and rammed one before crashing into a guardrail near Autobahnkreuz Nürnberg . The man brandished a repainted toy gun at the officers when he exited and did not desist after several warnings, instead threatening two officers individually. One officer fired a shot, followed by a second firing two from his submachine gun, hitting the man in the back of the head. [151] [152] |
| 2000-04-04 | N.N. | 22 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | A Turkish man stabbed his mother and a neighbour, leaving the former with life-threatening injuries, during a family argument. When police arrived, he fired at them through a window in their home with a gas pistol. Officers shot back and hit the man three times in the torso. [151] [153] |
| 2000-05-03 | N.N. | 28 | Sigmaringen | Baden-Württemberg | During a footchase, the pursued suspect threw a store sign on the ground, causing the officer behind him to trip. As he fell to the ground, a shot discharged from the officer's weapon, which fatally struck the suspect. [45] |
| 2000-09-19 | Bui, Khan | 28 | Ulm | Baden-Württemberg | A woman called police after she saw a man cradling a rifle on a path in the woods. Police confronted the man at the path and ordered him to drop the weapon, but this only made him walk towards the officers, who then shot the man 22 times - 9 of the rounds hit their target, who died of a single bullet to the chest. It was later found that the man, a Vietnamese national, had been reported missing from a care facility, revealing that he was mentally handicapped due to childhood meninigits and had actually been holding an airsoft assault rifle, described as "serving the function of a stuffed toy" for the deceased, which officers did not recognize in the dark and foggy weather. [45] [151] [154] |
2001
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001-01-26 | Amadi, John | 19 | Düsseldorf | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Nigerian asylum seeker was kicked, beaten, and choked by six narcotics agents during a drug raid at Worringer Platz. He subsequently stopped breathing and was declared dead at the scene. Police initially claimed that the man had swallowed small drug packages to hide evidence and died when one spontaneously ruptured without outside force, but an autopsy showed that no drugs were in his system. [155] |
| 2001-01-29 | L., Mike | 23 | Berlin | Berlin | Police learnt through a tapped telephone line of the planning of a supermarket robbery at Anton Saefkow-Platz. SEK placed officers around the location and waited for the robbers to show themselves. Three armed men eventually approached the market, but were confronted by SEK in the entry hall. The ringleader managed to escape and gun in hand, he charged towards two officers, with another officer firing at the robber three times, hitting him once in the side and once in the back. The gun was found to be a gas pistol. The surviving robbers and three accomplices, two of whom were minors, were later determined to have participated in six robberies the previous year, during which a cashier was injured by gas pistol fire. [156] [157] [158] |
| 2001-03-07 | C., Ali | 25 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | As a convoy of police vehicles was driving to respond to a call, a private vehicle integrated itself into the column and abruptly stepped on the brakes, stopping the entire line. The Turkish driver then stepped out of the car and threatened a bus of police officers behind him with a gun. He fled when police from the other vehicles intervened and shot five times at the fleeing driver, hitting him in the thigh, chin, shoulder, and face. He died from a projectile piercing his brachial artery. The weapon turned out to have been a gas pistol, leading investigators to believe that the death was a case of suicide by cop. [156] [159] [160] |
| 2001-06-12 | N.N. | 27 | Olpe | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man wielding a screwdriver announced his intention to kill himself on a public street. Three police officers were able to convince the man to reconsider and instead visit a doctor. He agreed and as he was being escorted by one of the officers, the other two following closely behind, the man stabbed the officer accompanying him in the head without warning, causing life-threatening injuries. Another officer used pepper spray on the man and then shot him in the arm, both to no effect, ending with him fatally shooting the man in the neck. [156] |
| 2001-07-14 | Sarr Wegener, N'deye Mareame | 26 | Aschaffenburg | Bayern | Police were alerted to the scene of an early hours custody dispute between a separated couple over their two-year-old child in which the husband requested full guardianship without his Senegalese wife's knowledge, after the husband called police when his wife confronted him about this at his apartment. The situation escalated when the wife refused to leave and instead grabbed a bread knife, stabbing one of the officers, cutting his hand. A second officer fired at her after a warning when she raised the knife to the first officer again, with reports conflicting on whether the shot struck her in the arm or her collar bone. Either way, bone shards hit the wife in the aorta, leading to her death from internal bleeding in a hospital just hours later. German African activist organizations blamed racism for the shooting, saying that lethal force would not have been used had the attacker been an ethnic German. It was also alleged that the recent change to hollow-point bullets made the usage of Bavarian police firearms more deadly than necessary. Both arguments were refuted in official police statements. [156] [161] [162] |
| 2001-08-05 | N.N. | 40 | Gruibingen | Baden-Württemberg | Two police officers searched a furniture factory after an alarm was triggered. After finding no trace of a break-in, both officers left the building and shortly after, the submachine gun of one of the officer discharged and killed his colleague with a shot through the lung. [156] |
| 2001-12-08 | John, Achidi | 19 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Police officers in St. Georg arrested Nigerian asylum seeker Michael Paul Nwabuisi, who was registered under the false identity as a Cameroonian national named Achidi John, because they assumend he was selling drugs and was a bodypacker. He was brought to the UKE, where a physician applied an emetic forcefully by a nasal tube. After the procedure he fell to the ground and died three days later from a combination of heart defect, the stress of the procedure, and the effects of cocaine, with a total of 45 pellets containing powdered and crack cocaine being recovered from his gastrointestinal track. [163] |
| 2001-12-24 | N.N. | 44 | Leinburg | Bayern | A man with a long record for violent crime broke into the apartment of his ex-girlfriend and threatened her and her boyfriend who were both able to escape him. He then set the apartment on fire and attempted to attack two police officers arriving on the floor, with a 30-year old officer firing six shots in the attacker's stomach, chest, and shoulder from a range of 1,50 meters. [156] [164] |
| 2001-XX-XX | N.N. | Most statistics list 8 police shooting deaths in 2001, but two, listed as having occurred on 5 March and 3 April 2001, appear identical in reporting and location to two shootings that occurred on 6 March and 4 April in 2000. It's noted that police records only list 5 shooting deaths for 2001, due to often excluding cases where accidental discharges caused death. [165] [166] A 2005 article mentions the shooting of a 19-year old man who stabbed his father multiple times with a knife in Weimarer Land district, Thuringia, but no mention of fatalities is made. [167] | |||
| 2001-XX-XX | N.N. | Most statistics list 8 police shooting deaths in 2001, but two, listed as having occurred on 5 March and 3 April 2001, appear identical in reporting and location to two shootings that occurred on 6 March and 4 April in 2000. It's noted that police records only list 5 shooting deaths for 2001, due to often excluding cases where accidental discharges caused death. [151] [156] A 2004 article mentions a investigation into a potential coverup of a July 2001 police operation in Hennef, in which a suspect reportedly shot himself after a gunfight, with suspicions that he may have actually been killed by SEK. [168] |
2002
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002-03-24 | N.N. | 63 | Kreuzwertheim | Bayern | A man known for his violent tendencies was supposed to be brought to a mental hospital by police, but stabbed one of the officers with a knife while resisting. The officer's partner then shot and killed the man. [169] |
| 2002-04-05 | N.N. | 40 | Düsseldorf | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A bank robber who made off with 5000 euro in Urdenbach was discovered hiding in a garden behind the bank by police. Two officers unsuccessfully attempted to restrain him and when he pulled out a gun, another officer fired a warning shot before shooting twice at the robber, fatally hitting him in the head. [169] [170] |
| 2002-05-11 | Neisius, Stephan | 30 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Cologne police scandal : Police were called to the Neustadt-Süd apartment of a woman and her schizophrenic son, after a neighbour saw the latter breaking glass doors with a hockey stick after an argument about his refusal to have his thrombosis treated, also voicing her suspicion that he was being violent towards his mother. After being denied entry by the man, four officers broke open the door and attempted to arrest him. Due to heavy resistance that included bites, punches, kicks and a hammer throw, the officers used pepper spray and threw the man to the ground before handcuffing him. On the way to the transport vehicle, the man reportedly "slipped the officers' grasp" six times while descending five stories of staircase and during the ride, an officer, Lars S., is alleged to have hit him for repeatedly screaming "I am Jesus". According to two uninvolved police officers, once at the police station, the man was dragged to a cell and beaten by several officers while still in hand and foot restraints. He was lying in a puddle of blood when paramedics brought him to a hospital, where he suffered from a cardiac arrest and fell into a coma during which he died on 24 May. Six officers were charged with common bodily harm with fatal consequences and were removed from police service. [163] |
| 2002-05-28 | N.N. | 22 | Wiesbaden | Hessen | A Pakistani man entered an optometrist's office and held an 18-year old employee, his ex-girlfriend, at gunpoint, allowing others in the practice to leave before he kept her hostage for three hours. He made repeated threats to kill the woman and himself, also firing several stray shots. Because the man told officers over the phone that he would not surrender, police attempted to take down the hostage taker by shooting him in the side. The bullet ends up traveling through the arm into the hip, leading to his death at a hospital a week later. The woman had previously filed a complaint for stalking and made explicit mention of her ex-boyfriend's repeated threats to commit a murder-suicide during and after their relationship. [169] [171] [172] [173] |
| 2002-07-14 | N.N. | 36 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A drunk driver drove through a police checkpoint and continued to evade police until he drove his VW bus into the side of a house. He then fled to the roof of a multi-storey car park in Altona, where police surrounded him with guns drawn. According to the officer, as he was tried to pull the man back over the railing with one hand, his gun in the other hand accidentally discharged, hitting the driver, who proceeded to stumble backwards and die after a 10-meter fall. [169] [174] [175] [176] |
| 2002-07-28 | Bastubbe, René | 30 | Nordhausen | Thüringen | Police were called after residents saw two men hitting a faulty cigarette machine and attempted to escape police. One man was caught while the other escaped despite the use of pepper spray. The remaining man, who was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, began throwing paving stones at officers and after repeated warnings, he was fatally shot by 30-year old officer René Strube while bending down for another brick, the bullet having gone through his back and become stuck in his collar bone. The death caused local outrage, as the deceased was a reformed far-right hooligan who renounced his ways in prison and befriended Holocaust survivors while working at the memorial site of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Strube was not charged and in 2019, he became a Landtag candidate for the AfD, causing outrage in leftist circles, including Die Linke. [169] [177] [178] |
| 2002-10-10 | N.N. | 48 | Euskirchen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A 34-year old female police officer strangled a woman to death in a church. The officer had recently stopped taking hormones she was prescribed following thyroid cancer surgery at her doctor's orders and was suffering from psychotic depressive episodes as a result. She took temporary illness from her job and was being observed at a hospital when she left to repeat the Lord's Prayer at a nearby cathedral. The officer stated that she felt "bothered" by another woman lighting a candle and then heard voices in her mind that said the visitor was "sent by Satan", leading her to put the woman in a headlock until she stopped breathing. The officer was arrested at the scene and temporarily put in psychiatric care. She was found not guilty of murder in December of the same year and received no punishment, due to inculpability on account of mental illness at the time, yet no remaining danger posed since the hormone therapy ended. [179] [180] |
| 2002-11-22 | N.N. | 45 | Bad Nauheim | Hessen | A man shot his wife at her workplace at a supermarket after an argument. The man then called the police, but refused to either exit the building or let emergency services take his injured wife. SEK stormed the market to secure the hostage, leading to a shootout that left the husband mortally injured and an officer lightly wounded. The shooter died before midnight at a hospital. [169] |
| 2002-12-01 | Syrokowski, Robert | 18 | Lübeck | Schleswig-Holstein | A couple in St. Jürgen called police because a drunk teenager had ringed their doorbell in the middle of night and claimed to live at the house. Two police officers, 40-year-old Alexander M. and 52-year-old Hans Joachim G., arrived to take the teenager away, supposedly to a drunk tank at the police station, but instead dropped him off at a country road outside of their jurisdiction at 3 degrees Celsius with the nearest town (Bliestorf) being 7 kilometers away. He walked for two kilometers before he was fatally struck by a car. The officers were charged with negligent homicide and sentenced to one and a half years and nine months imprisonment respectively. [181] [182] |
| 2002-12-24 | V., Julio | 25 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Police were called to an apartment complex in Uhlenhorst after neighbors reported intruders inside a flat across the hall. Officers encountered three men wielding tools attempting to leave via the stairway and engaged them in a scuffle. 43 year old officer Wolfgang Sch. fired a shot in what he described as "self-defense", hitting one of the burglars, a Dutch national, in the back. The wounded man was able to jump out of a window on the first floor a few meters off the ground and run about 50 meters before collapsing from blood loss. After six separate trials, the officer was given 8 months probation in 2008. [163] [169] [183] [184] [185] |
2003
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003-05-04 | N.N. | 31 | Saarlouis | Saarland | A burglar was caught during a break-in at an electronics store and attempted to escape by car. When his car was stopped at A620 during a routine traffic stop, the burglar opened fire on police, heavily injuring one officer. He was subsequently shot himself and died at the scene. [186] |
| 2003-05-22 | Sch., Steffen | 14 | Vöhl | Hessen | 51-year old Kripo officer Edmund Sch. killed his wife and two sons with his service pistol, before killing himself. The bodies of the sons were found seated at a table set for breakfast while the husband and wife were lying in the hall. A found suicide note revealed, that Sch. was suffering from depression and fear about the future. [187] |
| Sch., Dominik | 19 | ||||
| Sch., Waltraud | 48 | ||||
| 2003-09-24 | O., Oliver | 40 | Wedemark | Niedersachsen | Following an argument with his wife, a man purposely crashed his car into a tree in Mellendorf. When a passerby tried to check up on him, the man, standing at 1,98 meter and weighing over 100 kilograms, beat, bit, and choked her, nearly severing a finger before her dog fended him off. He then began damaging nearby parked cars while shouting nonsensical phrases. When people at a house party confronted the man about the disturbance, he rushed into the house, beating several more people and using a bottle to hit a car. When a passing police car stopped to check on the situation, the man bludgeoned one officer's head with his bare hands and grabbed his heavy-duty flashlight as a makeshift weapon while the other officer retreated to call for backup. Having put around 100 meter distance between himself and the attacker, the injured officer fired a warning shot before shooting the man in the knee, to no effect, as the man continued advancing towards him, shouting "Du kannst mir gar nichts, ich bin nämlich unsterblich" ("You can't harm me, for I am invincible"). The 37-year old officer fired another four shots, hitting him in the abdomen, but even so, the man was able to make a dash into the open police car, apparently to attempt escape. The officers were able to lock him inside, with the man breaking a window and attempting to crawl out before being restrained. He was subsequently brought to a hospital, but did not receive treatment as he kept attacking the doctors, dying from his injuries hours later. [186] [188] [189] [190] |
| 2003-12-11 | N.N. | 32 | Rheurdt | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called by a neighbour after she had dispute with the man in the apartment next door. The man turned out to be a known drug addict with psychosis and first refused to let officers in before attacking them with a knife. The officers fired ten shots at the man, with eight of those hitting him, with two shots in the chest and one in the head being determined to have caused his death. [186] [191] |
2004
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-01-27 | N.N. | 22 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Two men opened fire from their car during a routine documents check by police in Nordend. A 27-year-old officer was hit in the shoulder and in the shootout, the driver was killed while the passenger was heavily injured and died at a hospital. Large amounts of money were found inside the vehicle. The driver had a prior record for drug and theft offenses and it's suspected that both men had robbed a beverage store shortly before the traffic check. [192] [193] |
| N.N. | 31 | ||||
| 2004-02-03 | S., Alexander | 32 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Three SEK officers were practising how to overpower offenders during a training exercise at a barracks in Rodenkirchen when an officer's gun went off and killed one of them. The officer who discharged the shot had been carrying a loaded weapon against regulations for unknown reasons and was sentenced to eight months probation. Seven more officers were suspended and the SEK unit they were a part of was disbanded. [194] [192] [195] |
| 2004-02-05 | N.N. | 36 | Düren | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Two police officers accompanied city officials to an apartment for the transport of a man to a psychiatric clinic. Police broke open the lock after they were denied entry, at which point the man fired several shots from a gun at the group. The officers fired back before retreating, with SEK later finding the man dead from a single shot. His weapon was identified as a gas pistol, with other firearms being found at the scene. [192] [196] |
| 2004-03-01 | N.N. | 35 | Schweinfurt | Bayern | A woman requested police to fetch her as she was afraid of her life partner. When two officers, both aged 47, arrived, the partner, who was sitting drunk on the ground of the living room, pointed a gun at them. He failed to listen to repeated warnings, standing up and walking towards both officers before officer Gustav R. fired a shot at the man. Because the officer fell to the ground due to recoil, the other officer believed the man had shot his colleague, firing five shots at the suspect, fatally striking him three times in the stomach. The man died at a hospital the next day and the weapon was discovered to be a gas pistol. An investigation revealed that the man had faked the threat against his girlfriend to get police to the scene, intent on having an officer shoot him in a suicide by cop. The second officer later found out that the deceased was the brother of a close friend. [197] [198] |
| 2004-04-30 | N.N. | 35 | Göppingen | Baden-Württemberg | A resident caught a tire slasher in the act and was immediately threatened. The resident then called police, who attempted to calm the knifeman down, but were forced to use deadly force when he did not put away his weapon. [192] [199] |
| 2004-06-02 | N.N. | 62 | Schöneck | Hessen | A bank robber who had stolen 20,000 euro at gunpoint was spotted by a police patrol and opened fire on the officers. Returning fire fatally hit the robber in the chest. [192] [200] |
| 2004-09-23 | Tas, Ersin | 21 | Neuss | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Turkish man beat and kidnapped his 21-year-old Moroccan former girlfriend at knifepoint over an ongoing custody battle over their four month old child. Due to his car not starting, he retreated to a garage and made demands to police for his infant son, cocaine, pizza, alcohol and a taxi, or else he would cut off his hostage's fingers, also dousing her in gasoline and threatening to kill her and himself. He was shot by SEK during the rescue operation in which 100 officers were involved. The hostage was secured with minor lacerations. During their relationship, the man had held his girlfriend hostage in their home until she fled and found refuge at a women's shelter from where he later abducted her. [201] [202] [203] |
| 2004-09-27 | N.N. | 77 | Gießen | Hessen | A tenant attempted to prevent his eviction by locking himself in his apartment and alternately threatening to shoot the bailiff or to kill himself for three hours. SEK raided the location, leading to a shootout during which one shot was fired by the tenant while two shots were fired by officers, killing the man. [204] [205] |
| 2004-11-25 | N.N. | 43 | Ratingen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Two armed men disguised in Santa Claus outfits robbed 140 000 euro from a Sparkasse bank in Lintorf. Two police officers saw the robbery occurring and attempted to arrest the robbers once they stepped outside, but in the ensuing firefight, both officers were injured while one of the robbers was killed. The last robber managed to escape in a car driven by his girlfriend, who took him to a hospital, where both were then arrested. The deceased had been previously convicted of murder. [206] [207] [208] [209] |
| 2004-12-27 | Condé, Laye-Alama | 35 | Bremen | Bremen | Police officers arrested a Sierra Leonean asylum seeker in Viertel because they assumed he was selling drugs. Since officers believed he had swallowed cocaine pellets to hide evidence, the man was brought to a police station where a doctor applied an emetic forcefully through a stomach tube. He was physically restrained during this process, which was repeated unsucessfully several times, during which the man inhaled vomit and suffered a lack of oxygen. He went comatose, but left alone for around 15 minutes, as personnel assumed he was feigning injury, only receiving hospital treatment two hours later. The man died from cerebral hypoxia on 7 January 2005 without regaining consciousness. Five cocaine pellets were recovered from his stomach during the autopsy. The attending doctor was tried for negligent homicide, but found not guilty in 2011, ruling that the primary cause of death was a heart defect. [210] |
2005
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-01-07 | Jalloh, Oury | 37 | Dessau | Saxony-Anhalt | Oury Jalloh, a Guinea-born Sierra Leonean refugee, was arrested for harassment after repeatedly asking a woman on the street for her phone. He had refused to provide documentation and when he resisted being put into a squad car, two officers, Hans-Ulrich M. and Udo S., bound him in hand and foot restraints. Jalloh spent 2+1⁄2 hours in a holding cell, handcuffed by both his hands and feet to a mattress. A policewoman who spoke to Jalloh over the intercom in an attempt to calm the swearing man down, later stated that she heard "splashing" and sounds that led her to believe one or more people were in the same room as him. A fire then broke out in his cell, which was discovered ten minutes after it had erupted; a fire alarm went off, but was initially turned off twice without further action by a superior officer, Andreas M. Jalloh lived for a few minutes after the fire was extinguished before passing out and dying. An autopsy showed that he had died from an intense heat stroke and that there was alcohol, cannabis, and cocaine in his system. A court concluded that based on police testimony that despite having been tied up and searched, Jalloh had, in a timeframe of 20 minutes, doused the cell as well as the fire-resistant mattress in a flammable liquid (2 to 5 liters to account for the 4th-degree burns according to the court) and set himself ablaze with a lighter in his pocket that was not found during the initial search and first presented during the trial as evidence in a completely charred state. Another examination of his skeletal remains in 2019 found that signs that Jalloh had been severely beaten shortly before his death, as evidenced by a brittle septum, a broken rib, a torn eardrum and fractures to the nose and roof of the skull. The station chief was fined 10,800 euro in daily payments of 90 euro for negligent homicide. The case caused national and international outrage. The circumstances and their investigation, which were fully ceased in 2018, are still contested. Another man, Mario Bichtemann, had died in the same cell three years earlier from a skull fracture. [211] [212] [213] [214] |
| 2005-02-03 | N.N. | 34 | Karlskron | Bayern | Police were trying to stop a car with a broken headlight, but the vehicle sped off. The car got stuck after crashing into a fence when it swerved to avoid a road block and during the arrest, the man, who had a warrant for fraud, was fatally shot by officers. [215] [216] |
| 2005-02-11/08-02 | N.N. | 43 | Bielefeld | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Moroccan informant was meeting with two police officers at a fast food restaurant when he suddenly attempted to attack with a knife. One of the officers shot the informant in the chest; he later died at a hospital. [215] [217] |
| 2005-04-05 | F., Jens | 34 | Rudolstadt | Thüringen | A man shot two acquaintances after an argument with his girlfriend over a custody dispute over their one-year-old son, killing a 35-year old man and injuring a 32-year old man. He then attempted to ram arriving police with the car that still contained his girlfriend and son. While one officer is injured, two others fired 16 shots on the car, fatally striking the driver in the neck, lightly injuring the girlfriend and leaving the baby unharmed. [215] [218] [219] [220] |
| 2005-04-13 | N.N. | 18 | Lübeck | Schleswig-Holstein | A 44-year-old man fled to a neighbour's apartment in St. Lorenz after his son injured him with a knife in an argument. The neighbour called police to deal with the youth, who attacked both officers with two knives as soon as they entered through the door. He was shot in the stomach and died at the scene. [215] [221] |
| 2005-05-06 | N.N. | 45 | Großenhain | Sachsen | A 71-year-old man was being threatened by his son with two knives. Officers were rushed shortly after they entered the apartment and were forced to fire at least to fatal shots on the attacker. [215] [222] |
2006
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006-04-14 | Koumadio, Dominique | 23 | Dortmund | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Congolese asylum seeker was shot in the heart by a police officer from a distance of a few metres after threatening a kiosk employee in Eving with a butcher's knife and attacking a police car. According to witnesses, the man, who had been living in Germany since he was 14, had been arguing with the well-acquainted employee when he produced the knife. Human rights groups were outraged and claimed that despite the circumstances that his death was partially motivated or at least compounded by his skin color, also questioning the distance at which he was shot and the placement of the bullets. [223] [224] [225] |
| 2006-05-06 | N.N. | 41 | Lage | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called to the scene of a nightly noise complaint. Officers encountered a man wielding a gun in the courtyard of the building and fired at him. The gun was found to be a gas pistol. [226] [227] |
| 2006-05-10 | N.N. | 30 | Hanau | Hessen | A Moroccan bank robber ditched his loot and attempted escape on a stolen moped. He ran over a police officer who tried to stop him, suffering heavy injuries, before the officer's colleague shot the robber in the back, piercing his lungs. The robber subsequently choked on his own blood. [228] [229] [230] [231] |
| 2006-08-06 | N.N. | 28 | Gersfeld | Hessen | MEK were storming the apartment of a Russian German man wanted for being part of an armed robbery, after he and two other Russian nationals robbed a 26-year-old Ukrainian immigrant of 11,500 euro during the test drive of a car he sought to buy from them at gunpoint. They were greeted by a gun through the door, at which point one officer fired two shots, hitting the gunman in the chest and aorta, causing his death. [229] [232] |
| 2006-08-06 | N.N. | 55 | Fürth | Hessen | A man responsible for a noise complaint at a construction site was found swinging around an axe. Police ordered him to put the weapon down and was subsequently shot at least four times by a female officer, two grazing shots and two that hit the man in the lungs and aorta, killing him. It was reported that the man had been retired after being left with slight mental disabilities following a work accident and that he had apparently been attempting to build a house at the site by himself, leading to several run-ins with the law, though no physical incidents were known to either police or family. [229] [233] |
| 2006-12-01 | N.N. | 36 | Zell am Main | Bayern | A mentally ill man was breaking the windshields of several parked cars with an iron bar at the Oberzell Abbey . He was briefly confronted by the 45-year-old technical director of the monastery, but he retreated after being hit. Two other men, the custodian and a 71-year-old parishioner delivering Christmas cookies for the nuns, saw this and intervened as well. The parishioner managed to strike the attacker in the head with a shovel before tripping and being severely beaten with a hammer by him, causing life-threatening injuries to his skull. Arriving police peppersprayed the attacker to no effect and after repeated warnings to stop his assault, a 27-year-old officer fired two shots when he saw him lifting his arm to beat one of the injured men on the ground. The attacker died in a hospital. He was identified as a Lebanese citizen and had already been noted for a previous incident in March 2005 when he fractured a woman's skull with a meat tenderizer. In June 2007, the two attacked men were honored with medals by minister president Edmund Stoiber for their civil courage. [45] [229] [234] [235] [236] [237] |
2007
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-01-30 | G., Sven | 28 | Nauen | Brandenburg | 24 year old Berlin police officer Sebastian V. was on his way home when he attempted to arrest three drunk men he had spotted using glass breakers they had stolen from the train cart he was in to destroy the windows of phone booths and bus stops. The vandals fled, but two of them came back to threaten the officer when he called for backup. The call recorded as the officer yelled warnings at the men and fired a warning shot. The officer claimed one tried to lunge at him, at which point he fired three shots that fatally hit the attacker in vital arteries in the head and thigh. The other two vandals, aged 20 and 24, gave themselves up without resistance. A criminal charge was considered, as there was no indication that he had acted in self-defense, but it did not go to court. [238] [239] [240] |
| 2007-05-14 | N.N. | 35 | Hagen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A French national was checked into a hospital for psychosis by three police officers, who had staff administer sedatives and then tied his arms, legs and chin down. He lost consciousness hours later and suffered brain death due to cardiac arrest while the officers were present. His death only became public knowledge a year later after a similar death in police custody in March 2008. Police did not specify the reason or manner in which the man was tied down and also never explained why the foreign citizen was in their custody. [241] [242] |
| 2007-06-15 | N.N. | 19 | Speyer | Rheinland-Pfalz | A motorist without a driver's license and two passengers were being pursued by a police car after taking off during a traffic check for reckless driving. The vehicle stopped in the middle of the road and when an officer walked up to the car, it backed up without warning, pinning him against his own cruiser. Another officer then shot at the car's tires, then at the driver's side, striking the driver, a Russian national, with two deadly shots. [243] [244] [245] |
| 2007-06-26 | C., Tibor Istvan | 27 | Hamburg | Hamburg | After seven plainclothed police officers stopped the car of two suspected ATM robbers they had been observing near the Hamburg City Hall, 50 year old officer Hans-Peter A. approached the vehicle with his gun drawn. A shot then discharged from the weapon and struck the driver in the shoulder, who was able to step out of the vehicle and ask "You shot me, why did you shot [ sic] me?" before collapsing and dying at the scene; the projectile had ricocheted and pierced several vital organs. The men, both Romanian nationals, were found to have fraudulently obtained 3600 euro with credit cards under other people's names. Lawyers representing the deceased's minor children, who were British nationals, sued the officer for damages. The officer was suspended and faced involuntary manslaughter charges. He was cleared of all charges in 2009, but retried in 2010 due to new evidence. [246] [247] [248] [249] |
| 2007-07-01 | N.N. | 23 | Bonn | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Two police officers were searching the outside of St. Paulus Church in Beuel for two burglars who had robbed a nearby computer shop when one jumped from his hiding place in a bush and beat a female officer with a baton. Her colleague then shot him, leaving him with injuries that lead to his death at a hospital. The deceased's 19-year old accomplice was arrested without incident. [11] [250] |
| 2007-07-27 | Özdal, Murat | 37 | Eichstätt | Bayern | Police were called by a Turkish resident who stated that the former partner of his girlfriend had broken into his apartment and was threatening them with a butterfly knife. The intruder. also a Turk, attacked police upon arrival and was fatally shot in the chest. [11] [251] [252] |
| 2007-08-09 | H., Sebastian | 22 | Berlin | Berlin | A mugger who robbed a 21-year-old tourist in Neukölln was caught by two police officers. The mugger was shot twice in the chest when he aimed a defective gas pistol at the officers. A background check of the deceased revealed that he was a former Bundeswehr soldier with a history of alcohol abuse and served in the Afghanistan War between 2003 and 2004. It was noted that he had twice attempted suicide by slitting his wrists, which was attributed to suspected PTSD from his time in Afghanistan, with him telling friends and psychologists that he had nightmares of mutilated bodies and a young girl that bled to death in his arms while stationed in Kabul. His final text messages showed that he had again intended to take his life, which, combined with the non-functional weapon and meager loot (a keychain, a pack of cigarettes, and an empty purse), led investigators to believe that he instigated the crime to commit suicide by cop. [253] [254] [255] [256] |
| 2007-08-22 | N.N. | 35 | Worms | Rheinland-Pfalz | Police responded to a call from a neighbour about a man threatening his 35-year old wife with a knife in their apartment. The man then got into a fight with one of the arriving officers, who shot him in the chest when he felt threatened. [11] [257] |
| 2007-09-25 | N.N. | 30 | Bückeberg | Niedersachsen | After a motorist didn't pay at a gas station, a check of his licence plate showed that the car he was driving had been reported as stolen. The motorist crashed after a lengthy car chase, but when officers approached the wreck, the occupant suddenly jumped out with a gun in his hands, forcing officers to fire three shots, with one in the chest killing him instantly. [11] [258] |
| 2007-09-30 | N.N. | 25 | Plauen | Sachsen | A man called police to announce his intent to "throw out" his wife and child and then kill himself with a gun; it is unclear whether he meant that he would expel them from the apartment or defenestrate them. A 40-year old police officer shot the man after he pointed at them with a gun, which was found to be a gas pistol. [11] [259] [260] |
| 2007-10-02 | N.N. | 33 | Löhne | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A patient at a psychiatric facility was behaving aggressively and refusing to take his medication. When SEK attempted to overpower the patient, he attacked officers with a knife. He was fatally shot after taser usage failed. [11] [261] [262] |
| 2007-11-26 | N.N. | 37 | Brake | Niedersachsen | Police were called over a man threatening his wife and two of their children inside their house. Officers were immediately attacked by the man when he rushed them at the stairwell with a knife. When he did not react to pepper spray, the man was shot four times in the chest, shoulder and neck, dying of blood loss in the front garden. [263] |
| 2007-12-02 | B., Jürgen | 52 | Neumünster | Schleswig-Holstein | 47-year old police officer Jörg L. killed his ex-wife and her new partner with his service pistol. He killed himself in the city of Kiel, several hours later. [264] |
| L., Marita | 44 | ||||
| 2007-12-24 | N.N. | 66 | Heppenheim | Hessen | Police officers were called by the family of a man who had made suicide statements. He barricaded himself in his kitchen when officers came and threatened to jump out the window. After the man said he would go on a killing spree, SEK broke through the door and were attacked by the man wielding two knives. A taser was first tried, but when it malfunctioned, another officer fatally shot the man. [265] |
2008
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-03-11 | N.N. | 43 | Ratingen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A mentally ill man with persecutory delusions forcefully entered a neighbouring flat and took a 76-year old woman and her 57-year old son hostage for four hours. When police arrived, the man attacked a 32-year old officer with two kitchen knives, causing his 33-year old colleague to fire three shots, killing the man who died at the scene shortly after. [13] [266] [267] |
| 2008-02-17 | Özdamar, Adem | 26 | Hagen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man called police while suffering from cocaine-induced paranoia and asked to be brought to the station for safety, where he began acting out. Officers used pepper spray, handcuffed him and put him in a prone position on the floor for 15 minutes as they waited for an ambulance to take the man to a hospital. The arriving doctor found that he was no longer breathing and after police removed the man's bindings, taking several minutes to do so, she was able to resuscitate him for transport. The man died at a hospital on 5 March after spending a month in a coma. His death was attributed to fluid build-up in his brain. [268] [269] [270] |
| 2008-03-13 | Carmack, Jeremiah Wade | 30 | Altershausen | Bayern | An American soldier stationed at the U.S. Army Heidelberg Garrison broke into the apartment of his ex-girlfriend in Königsberg, tied her up and threatened her with a M4 carbine. After she escaped and alerted a SEK unit, the soldier fled, but was tracked down to a nearby field via thermal camera. The soldier was shot twice after he pointed his rifle at SEK who had been ordering him in English to drop it. He later died at a hospital. [13] [271] [272] |
| 2008-05-21 | M., Sultan | 24 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A resident in Billstedt called police because the Afghan couple next door was arguing loudly. As police arrived, the 30-year old wife barged out of the apartment to escape her husband, who was wielding a gun. The husband opened fire, hitting his wife in the stomach and shoulder, as well as grazing two officers in the neck and leg respectively; all three survived. One officer shot back as the husband retreated. MEK later found him dead from the wound in a stairwell, though it was initially claimed that he died from two self-inflicted gunshots to the head before rescinding their statement. The husband was found to have been a domestic abuser, having frequently beaten his wife, once even at her workplace at a cosmetics shop, and planted a listening device in her phone. [13] [273] |
| 2008-05-25 | N.N. | 53 | Bayreuth | Bayern | A schizophrenic man from Berlin was spotted by two police officers fiddling around with a parked bicycle. Officers called out to the man, who fled, pulled out a gun and began firing at them, heavily injuring one officer. The other then shot the man, five times in the chest and once in the buttocks. The man collapsed dead after running a few meters. Police briefly argued that the man had not died from the several shots that pierced his heart, but from a self-inflicted shot in the mouth, which an autopsy did not find. The gun was identified as having been stolen during a 1985 burglary in Itzehoe by the man, who had also been carrying a home-made shotgun. [13] [274] |
| 2008-05-30 | N.N. | 38 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Police responded to a call about a mentally ill man attacking multiple people inside a building in Langenhorn. The man immediately fought with the officers, beating several of them severely before he wrestled a gun from a female officer's hands. Another policewoman shot the man when he attempted to flee into an apartment, where he was found dead by MEK. [13] [275] |
| 2008-06-07 | N.N. | 29 | Dattenberg | Rheinland-Pfalz | Police were sent to prevent a man from violating a restraining order filed by his ex-girlfriend when he attempted to enter her apartment. He was able to grab an officer's baton and proceeded to bludgeon him with it until another officer shot him twice, killing him. A search of the man's home uncovered the body of 33 year old acquaintance from Erpel, whom the deceased had brutally beaten and drowned in the bath tub he was found in. [13] [276] |
| 2008-06-24 | N.N. | 34 | Langenhagen | Niedersachsen | A 22-year-old woman called police because her ex-boyfriend was standing in front of her apartment with two knives in his hands and trying to kick down her door. Officers attempts to subdue the attacker with pepper spray were unsuccessfully and when he charged at two arriving officers, the others shot the man three times in the torso; a fourth shot an officer in the foot. The man died at a hospital in Hannover later that day. [13] [277] |
| 2008-11-29 | H., Joachim | 50 | Weißenhorn | Bayern | Police conducted a wellness check at a man's residence after his estranged wife became worried over his prolonged isolation. The man threatened officers with a gun and after a standoff and negotiations lasting several hours, SEK stormed the premises. The man was shot and killed when he opened fire on the unit. [13] [278] |
| 2008-12-08 | N.N. | 28 | Neuwied | Rheinland-Pfalz | A man was to be arrested in his home for suspected drug dealing, assault and unlawfully discharging a firearm. Police found the man in his bed, but upon getting closer he aimed a revolver at the officers, who shot and killed him at the scene. [13] [279] |
| 2008-12-31 | J., Dennis | 26 | Schönfließ | Brandenburg | A petty criminal with a record for crimes including burglary, theft and assault was shot eight times by 34-year-old police officer Reinhard R. during an attempted arrest for not serving a 13-month sentence. Police stated that he was known to carry a knife and pepper spray on him, was under the influence of cocaine and had struck a police officer while fleeing in his car, but an autopsy showed that he had been dead before entering the vehicle. The shooter was given a suspended sentence, the other accusees were sentenced to monetary penalties. [280] [281] [282] |
2009
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-03-05 | B., Sven | 24 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Police headed to the address of a mentally ill man in St. Pauli who had threatened to kill himself over the phone. Knocking elicited no response and while officers were conversing with floor neighbours, the door was suddenly flung open and the resident charged at police with a 40 cm long blade. He was shot "more than four times" by an officer and died at the scene. [14] [283] |
| 2009-04-30 | Eisenberg, Tennessee | 24 | Regensburg | Bayern | A flatmate of student Tennessee Eisenberg called police about him acting madly and making stabbing motions towards his flatmates. Four police cars showed up, with several officers confronting Eisenberg, who threatened them with a knife. The exact events following have been subject to much scrutiny, as claims by police officers are inconsistent with the nature of the wounds inflicted; it has been established that the fatal shots were fired after Eisenberg had been subdued by warning shots and pepper spray, several shots even hitting him in the back. No officers had to appear in court. [284] |
| 2009-05-23 | N.N. | 69 | Haag in Oberbayern | Bayern | A civilian police car was pursuing a traffic offender on B12, making unlawful overtaking maneuvers and driving over the speed limits themselves, when the police car struck and killed an elderly pedestrian crossing the road. [285] |
| 2009-06-01 | N.N. | 45 | Ahlen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A 49-year-old police officer killed his girlfriend with several shot from his sidearm before committing suicide. Both of them were married and it is assumed that the officer wanted to avoid the fallout from the affair. [286] |
| 2009-06-25 | H., Christian | 33 | Berlin | Berlin | A patron at a casino at Zoo train station was discovered carrying two different foreign passports (Croatian and Dutch) on him. After the man was brought to the police car, officers were informed via radio that the man was wanted for fraud and armed theft. As the man was being handcuffed, he broke loose, used pepper spray on an officer and grabbed the officer's gun, firing at him, barely missing his head. Another officer then fired twice on the attacker, who died in a hospital after being fatally hit in the torso. He was identified as a Croatian national and was wanted in connection to the 2008 contract killing of millionaire real estate magnate Friedhelm Sodenkamp for supplying the hitman, Polish ex-French Foreign Legion soldier Adam M., with the pistol used in the murder. [287] [288] [289] |
| 2009-08-20 | N.N. | 47 | Ruppichteroth | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A bank robber shot a police officer during a pursuit in the chest. At the following shootout, the robber was hit in the head and died. The police officer was severely injured, but survived. [290] |
| 2009-11-10 | N.N. | 48 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Police were called when a man was acting violent at the doorstep of his 44 year old ex-wife's apartment in Nieder-Eschbach. He shot at the arriving squad car, heavily injuring an officer, and was killed in the following shootout shortly after. [14] [291] [292] |
| 2009-12-24 | N.N. | 19 | Leimen | Baden-Württemberg | Three masked men robbed a gas station and ran into a random passing police patrol unit. One robber opened fire with his gas pistol on the police officers and was shot in the following. [293] |
| 2009-12-26 | P., Dirk | 38 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A mentally ill man diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder was trashing his apartment in Ohlsdorf and had the police called on him after his mother was unable to call him down. The man, who stood 1,90 m and weighed 130 kilos, attacked officers with a knife after they broke down his front door and when pepper spray did not stop him from advancing, he was shot three times in the torso by a 32-year old officer, bleeding to death within the hour. [294] [295] |
2010s
2010
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-01-26 | C., Alexander | 28 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Police responded to a call about a man arguing with a woman in front of a hospital in Nordend. The man had tried to check himself in for psychological treatment for his anxiety and depression, as well as a check-up after he drank six flasks of essential oils, but was denied since the clinic had not mental ward. The ensuing argument between him and his girlfriend, during which he wielded a peeling knife, was then reported by a custodian. Two officers, Michel and Schneider, were reportedly attacked by the man, and fired a total of four shots, with three striking the man in the chest and legs. He collapsed and was subsequently kicked and beaten with a baton by Schneider for "incapacitation for fixation". The man died at the hospital despite immediate treatment. An investigation revealed in December 2010 that video surveillance at the scene had apparently been tampered with, as it was missing several frames essential to the case, as these depicted the confrontation between the officers and the attacker. It was also found that a police radio conversation contained information that contradicted later statements by the same officers and initial reports of the deceased holding a knife before the shooting were disproven following extensive media reports. Furthermore, witnesses stated that officers had kicked the man in the head as he was on the ground, with a medical examination confirming injuries consisting with "head trauma by kicking". The prosecutor's office halted their investigation in November 2011, with the deceased's family lodging a complaint in response. The legal proceedings ended in September 2013. [296] [297] [298] [299] [300] |
| 2010-02-28 | Hamade, Slieman | 32 | Berlin | Berlin | A couple in Schöneberg called police to calm down their son who had become upset at his neighbours for playing loud music. In response to the man's heavy resistance, officers made use of batons and pepper spray. He eventually became unconscious and died at a hospital from circulatory failure, which was ascribed to an allergic reaction due to inhalation of the pepper spray. The death was heavily protested by local leftist groups as the deceased was of Lebanese descent and the police response was seen as discriminatory. [301] |
| 2010-03-15 | S., Wladimir | 37 | Berlin | Berlin | A Russian German man was threatening his 72-year-old mother with a knife in Wedding. She called the police and was able to flee the apartment. The son fled before officers' arrival, but returned two hours later holding an unspecified implement. Officers opened fire as they felt threatened by the unknown object. [16] [302] [303] |
| 2010-05-13 | J., Manfred | 44 | Hennef | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Two police officers were pursuing two men from Mönchengladbach suspected of having started a fight at a night club. The men had been ignoring commands to stop in their tracks and put up their hands when one suddenly turned around, put his hand to a holster on his belt and yelled "Komm her, ich knall euch alle ab!" ("Come here, I'll blow you all away!"). As the officers had been informed by witnesses that one of the men was armed, though without specifying what kind of weapon, he was shot immediately. It was discovered that he had actually been unarmed, with staff members of the club revealing that the man had been previously carrying a retractable baton in the holster and used it to beat someone during the brawl he was involved in; the club bouncers had confiscated the baton just before police arrived. The officer responsible for the shots was cleared of all charges at a trial on 15 April 2011. [304] [305] |
| 2010-06-07 | R., Anna | 10 | Oranienburg | Brandenburg | 32-year-old police officer Diana R. killed both her children before killing herself. She strangled her son and daughter in her flat and then hanged herself. Relatives had been unsuccessfully trying to open the apartment door around the time of the killings until firefighters arrived to break it down. Police believe that a custody dispute with her separated husband was the primary motive in the murder-suicide. [306] [307] |
| R., Max | 5 | ||||
| 2010-07-10 | N.N. | 38 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | An alcoholic resident at a homeless shelter in Bonames called police, claiming that he was armed and had taken a hostage, whom he would kill unless stopped. Police arriving at the scene quickly discovered that the resident, although armed with a katana, did not have a hostage and openly stated his plan to commit suicide by cop. After a lengthy talk, the man initially agreed to desist and went back inside, but as police were requesting backup for a potential psychiatric case, the man returned and charged at them, forcing the officers to shoot and kill him. His criminal record revealed that he had made a similar attempt in 2006, when he took a 63 year old neighbour in Königstein im Taunus hostage, which ended in him getting shot in the shoulder by SEK. [297] [308] |
| 2010-08-30 | L., Engelbert | 42 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | After robbing a pharmacy in Merheim, a robber armed with a gas pistol was surrounded by several police officers. It is unclear what exactly occurred, but one warning shot was fired followed by multiple shots directed at the robber who was hit four times in the legs and once in the neck, killing him. [16] [309] |
| 2010-09-19 | Radmacher, Sabine | 41 | Lörrach | Baden-Württemberg | 2010 Lörrach hospital shooting: A lawyer killed her husband and son at her apartment, which she then set on fire. She then went to a hospital, where she fatally shot a male nurse. The shooting and fire injured a further 18 people in total, including a police officer. The woman was later killed by SEK, who shot her 17 times. The deceased was a former sports shooter, although she had not been a member of a club since 1998, yet somehow still retained her weapons. |
| 2010-12-10 | B., Jaroslav | 40 | Karlsruhe | Baden-Württemberg | Baden-Württemberg serial bank robberies : After a successful bank robbery at a Volksbank, the so-called "gentlemen robbers" opened fire on the arriving police. During the following shoot-out with the police, a female officer was shot in the thigh while the male robber was killed by the police by multiple shots to the chest. His 38 years old accomplice and wife shot herself after being wounded. The couple, Czech nationals originally from Dubenec, had been committing bank robberies in the state since 1995, striking a total of 21 times and stealing over 2 million euro. [16] [310] [311] |
| 2010-12-30 | H., Doris | 49 | München | Bayern | A mental health clinic informed police that a former patient with psychosis and depression had called them and announced that she would kill her daughter. Firefighters broke open her balcony door at her apartment in Großhadern, after she failed to respond to police, then similarly threatened a 26-year old officer with a kitchen knife, walking towards him and cornering the officer on the balcony. After she did not react to pepper spray and ignored several warnings, the officer shot her once in the chest, dying at the scene from blood loss due to a pierced lung. [312] [313] [314] |
2011
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-05-19 | Omorodion Schwundeck, Christy | 39 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Christy Schwundeck, a Nigerian-born, German-naturalized woman whose marriage had broken up and who had a history of depression, was rejected monetary assistance in Frankfurt Jobcenter in Gallus and was requested to leave. She refused and the police was called in. Two officers, a 30-year-old male and a 28-year-old female, were confronted by the woman, who injured the male officer with a steak knife. The female officer pointed her service pistol at Christy Schwundeck and, after several verbal warnings and a threatening movement by the suspect towards the officer, the latter shot her. Christy Schwundeck died later in hospital. The case against the female officer has been dropped in spite of a formal request by Christy Schwundeck's relatives to re-open it. [315] |
| 2011-08-24 | H., Andrea | 53 | Berlin | Berlin | Andrea H., who was claimed to be mentally ill, was supposed to be compulsorily committed to a psychiatric hospital. It is claimed that she fought against this using a knife and injuring an officer at her apartment in Märkisches Viertel, after which a colleague of the injured officer shot her. [316] [303] |
| 2011-09-07 | N.N. | 37 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | A mentally ill man was scheduled for transport to the district medical office by police. Upon knocking on the man's apartment door in Neckarau, he opened the door and threw a molotov cocktail at a 49-year old officer, heavily injuring him in the face and torso. Officers fired severel shots as they retreated down the stairs and as they left the building, the man threw more molotov cocktails from a window. Police fired another shot at the man from the street, hitting him in the chest, with SEK who breached his apartment later on finding him dead from the gunshot. [317] [318] |
| 2011-09-18 | N.N. | 31 | Mönchengladbach | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A car thief attempted to break into a vehicle parked on the parking lot of a supermarket. A police patrol spotted him in the act and when they approached to arrest him, the thief pulled out a gun and began shooting at the officers. He was shot three times during the subsequent firefight and died at a hospital the same evening. [17] [319] |
| 2011-10-26 | N.N. | 47 | Cuxhaven | Niedersachsen | A homeless man threatened people attending a training event in an administration building, with varying reports of physically assaulting some of them. He was shot by one of the responding officers. The killed person is claimed to have approached the police with an iron bar. The prosecutor dropped the investigations against the 25-year-old police officer. [320] [321] |
| 2011-12-01 | K., Joachim | 59 | Monheim | Nordrhein-Westfalen | When a man was being taken from his apartment to a special care residency, he attacked police officers with a knife. He was hit by bullets and bled to death, before paramedics arrived. [17] [322] |
2012
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-01-21 | R., Lea | 8 | Saarlouis | Saarland | 49-year old police officer Bernd J. killed his daughter with his service pistol, before killing himself. Investigators concluded that he had "meticulously planned" the murder after his wife filed for separation. [323] |
| 2012-02-26 | N.N. | 57 | Maintal | Hessen | A man with known psychological issues was claimed to be loudly yelling while throwing bottles from his flat in Maintal-Bischofsheim onto the street below and causing a disturbance. Police forced entry into the apartment of the man, who is said to have threatened the officers with knives. Police fired several shots, killing the man. The investigation by the prosecutor against the officers was dropped. [324] |
| 2012-04-09 | N.N. | 25 | Karlsruhe | Baden-Württemberg | A police car was responding to a call when it crashed into a taxi, killing a female passenger and injuring six more occupants, three of them critically. The police vehicle only came to a halt after hitting a building. The 23-year-old police officer driving the car was not charged. [325] [326] |
| 2012-05-07 | A., Djordjo | 47 | Aichach | Bayern | A Bosnian man shouted insults at a 22-year-old neighbour while ordering him to remove his car from a parking spot while in his apartment, claiming it was his, despite not owning any vehicle. When the neighbour refused, the man went down to the parking lot with an axe and chased after the neighbour, who was able to flee into the apartment building. The attacker was shot by responding police officers while trying to bash down the door. [327] [328] |
| 2012-07-04 | N.N. | 43 | Wiesloch | Baden-Württemberg | A man randomly tried to attack two young Turkish women outside of a café with a chair and after fleeing, he began slashing at passerby with a bowie knife. Police officers made an arrest attempt and ordered him to drop the knife while he advanced towards the officers. After a warning shot, police fired at the man from close range, killing him. [329] |
| 2012-08-01 | Scheffler, Horst | 51 | Elsfleth | Niedersachsen | Two police officers were called to assist a district worker and a house doctor in bringing a schizophrenic man to a psychiatric institution, after the man's sister called the doctor because her brother was not taking his medication. The officers' presence was requested as she also said that the man had begun carrying a carpenter's hammer on his person. When the group knocked on the door, the man opened, but stated that he would not go with them, claiming that "nothing's wrong". When he caught sight of the police, he pulled out a hammer and lunged at one of the officers, who used pepper spray while running backwards. The other officer, believing the man was going for another strike, fired two shots, hitting him in the groin and chest. [330] [331] Although the shooting was deemed self-defense shortly after, the deceased's family requested a continued investigation into the death. The deceased's twin brother also filed for pain and suffering in 2014 and alleged that contrary to court statements by the attacked officer in 2012, that claimed that a wound to the officer's head was inflicted by the deceased through a hammer blow, that it was instead caused when the officer fell down after the shooting, meaning that there was no harm inflicted on the officer by the deceased and thus no hazardous situation that would have warranted deadly force. It was instead posited that the deceased had aimed for his own legs in an act of self-harm. The shooter also testified that he did not see his colleague being hit in the head. The court dismissed the notion. [332] |
| 2012-09-26 | R., Daniel | 38 | Bitterfeld | Sachsen-Anhalt | A police patrol found a 27-year-old woman bleeding from several stab wounds lying on a street. From her testimony, officers launch a search for her boyfriend whose motorcycle is found parked outside a tattoo studio. After several hours of observation, the boyfriend rushed out of the building and immediately attacked officers with a sharp object, heavily injuring one after stabbing him in the head repeatedly. He was then shot by another officer. [333] |
| 2012-10-06 | Conrad, André | 50 | Berlin | Berlin | A drunk man had been reported to walk around with a knife and an axe in Wedding. Two police officers were sent in, whose commands he ignored, also not responding to mace. The man was then shot six times in the stomach and leg by both officers, and while on the ground, he was pepper sprayed, beaten with batons and kicks, as well as bitten in the hand, arm and thigh by a police dog. He fell into a coma and died two weeks later. A manslaughter investigation concluded in 2014 that the officers acted in self-defense because the deceased was still clutching the knife. The deceased had been suffering from psychological issues since the death of his son and father earlier that year. [334] [335] [336] |
| 2012-12-02 | N.N. | 64 | Singen | Baden-Württemberg | Police were sent to serve a warrant at a man's home. The resident was lying drunk on his sofa and began threatening the officers with a revolver, not listening to any commands to put the weapon away. One officer fired two shots, with one fatally striking the man below the neck, with it later being found that the revolver was a gas pistol. [337] |
| 2012-12-07 | N.N. | 31 | Lindenfels | Hessen | A man driving on B47 made several calls to police that he was planning a spree killing. The man's girlfriend separately called in to inform officers that her boyfriend was "losing his mind" after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was flagged down by police officers, but refused to put down the gun he was holding, even after several warnings were made, and was fatally shot. The gun turned out to be a gas pistol. [338] |
2013
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-03-18 | N., Wolfgang | 62 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | A drunk man got into an argument with neighbours at their apartment building in Gallus, which ended with him stabbing two of them with a knife. He was fatally shot when he tried to attack arriving police officers in the staircase. [339] [340] |
| 2013-05-25 | P., Jürgen | 49 | Geltendorf | Bayern | A suspicious minivan with strange looking markings of German Military Police and a blue emergency beacon on its roof was reported to police by forest workers. As two policemen arrived on the scene, the driver immediately opened fire on the officers which they returned. The attacker was hit deadly by police, a 43-year old officer was wounded by a shot being stopped from his bulletproof vest. Investigations identified the deceased from Türkenfeld as a wanted serial robber known as "Der Waldläufer" ("The Woodland Ranger"), named for his tendency to escape into nearby forest after robberies, that raided several shops and gas stations in Oberbayern since February 2010 during which 5000 euro were stolen in total. The van was found to contain several small-caliber handguns, ammunition, and live handgrenades. [341] [342] [343] [344] |
| 2013-06-07 | W., Heinrich | 73 | Starnberg | Bayern | A schizophrenic retiree entered the lobby of a police station and drew a knife in front of the reception; he then rushed at three officers who were approaching him in the hallway and was shot seven times by in return, succumbing to a single gunshot to the head. The deceased had a criminal record for civil disorder since the 1980s, including threatening passerby with a machete and writing threatening letters to government officials. He had been released two months earlier from a brief stay at a mental institution and written a letter that read that "there will be a corpse". [345] [346] [347] |
| 2013-06-28 | F., Manuel | 31 | Berlin | Berlin | A recently laid-off accountant and diagnosed schizophrenic assaulted a neighbour after locking himself out of his apartment. Officers did not find him until the next morning, when passerby reported seeing a man strip off his clothes before climbing naked into the Neptunbrunnen in front of the Rotes Rathaus, brandishing a knife and deeply cutting his throat, torso and arms, while declaring that he was the messiah. Police arrived at the scene to arrest the man, with one officer attempting to convince him to lay down the weapon while another officer, Christian F., entered the fountain on his own accord wielding a baton. The man, standing 1,87 meter and weighing 70 kg, noticed the second officer, turned around and began walking towards him. After he did not follow commands to stop, the officer fired one shot in the chest, killing him. It was found that the deceased had not been using his prescripted medication in his flat, but did have amphetamine, MDA, MDMA, MDE, methamphetamine und THC in his bloodstream. The incident was filmed on phone by witnesses, becoming a viral shock video, and was widely discussed in the press. [348] [349] [350] [351] |
| 2013-07-10 | T., Susanne | 36 | Planegg | Bayern | 38-year old police officer Martin S. killed his former life partner with a pistol. He waited for the woman to leave the building she was working in, followed her and shot her six times, before killing himself several minutes later. The pair had been embroiled in a custody dispute over their 5-year old daughter, in which the deceased and her new boyfriend were favored as legal guardians. [352] [353] [354] [355] |
| 2013-08-15 | W., Torsten | 34 | Merching | Bayern | A man texted his former girlfriend that he would come to her house, call the police and have the officers shoot him at her door step. Arriving police found him rampaging around his girlfriend's front door and upon being approached, the man shot at them with a gun. Police fired back, hitting the man who died at the scene. [356] |
| 2013-11-04 | S., Wojciech | 59 | Reichenau | Sachsen | 55-year-old LKA police officer Detlev G. killed a Polish businessman from Hannover. The pair had met on an online cannibal forum, with the victim agreeing to a "consensual homicide" by acting out a "slaughter house" fantasy for sexual gratification. The men met in a pension owned by G.'s husband and filmed the murder in a basement prepared for the act. The businessman is presumed to have died from either blood loss and asphyxiation, and was then dismembered. The majority of his remains were buried on the property, with only his genitals missing. Court could not determine whether parts of the victim had actually been consumed, with the defense arguing that the deceased had actually hanged himself before bleeding out, though this was not recorded on video. The officer first received 8 and a half years for murder in 2015, but the court filed revision and sentenced him to life imprisonment in February 2018. [357] [358] [359] [360] |
| 2013-11-12 | R., Martin | 36 | Stuttgart | Baden-Württemberg | A drunk man with psychiatric issues called police at midnight, saying that he would be going out onto the street outside his Stuttgart-Ost apartment with a pistol, which was later identified as a blank gun. He had previously told acquaintances that he planned to commit suicide by cop. He fired two shots when police officers arrived and ignored all commands as well as a warning shot. An officer shot at the man when he tried to run around a car, which would have led him right to another officer. Although the shot was aimed at the left thigh, it hit the man in the abdomen, leading to his death at a hospital. [339] [361] |
| 2013-12-12 | N.N. | 27 | Hürth | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A mentally ill man heavily injured his wife with a machete during a domestic incident. A police officer shot him when he attacked arriving officers as well. [362] |
| 2013-12-20 | Kara, Emrah | 29 | Holzminden | Lower Saxony | A Turkish man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia had stopped taking his medication and locked himself in his room with a knife. The family contacted their doctor, who in turn called police. The SEK sent in a police dog in hopes that it would disarm or calm the man. After the man stabbed the dog to death, he was shot by police. [363] |
2014
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-03-02 | B., Helena | 18 | Kelheim | Bayern | 28-year-old police officer Marcel R. killed his girlfriend with six shots to the head before killing himself. The officer did not have access to his sidearm, which he had handed in after taking leave for prolonged illness, with an investigation revealing that he had stolen the gun used in the killing from the locker of a colleague. [364] [365] |
| 2014-05-24 | Halimi, Muslim | 28 | Landshut | Bayern | A Kosovar man convicted of false imprisonment rampaged in his cell and broke a window in his cell, cutting his hand in the process. When officers tried to calm him down and get him medical attention, the prisoner lunged at them with a glass shard, injuring two people before eight officers wrestled him to the ground to restrain him. He subsequently died of cardiac arrest. [366] [367] |
| 2014-06-12 | N.N. | 75 | Heinsberg | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called by a woman after her neighbour shouted at her through the door to be let in while holding a metal bar. Shortly after police arrived to deal with the situation, the neighbour's father suddenly appeared and attacked the officers with a knife, the attacker's son joining in with his own knife. During the stabbing, four officers were injured, two of them critically, before one officer shot the neighbour's father in the thigh, causing him to bleed to death in the hallway. [368] [369] |
| 2014-07-11 | B., Stephan | 46 | Asbach-Bäumenheim | Bayern | A police officer was shooting inside and around his house with a private pistol. When a SEK raided the house after negotiations failed, they were shot at, returned fire and killed their colleague. The police officer was presumably suffering from personal problems and in emotional distress. [370] [371] |
| 2014-07-25 | Borchardt, Andreas "André" | 33 | Burghausen | Bayern | A Russian-born German man with prior convictions for possession of and trading drugs was under observation because police suspected he was still dealing; a house search had yielded no contraband besides anabolic steroids. Due to digital evidence that he was planning a deal involving three kilos of cannabis, a warrant was issued, with two policemen waiting outside his flat to arrest him, but upon being spoken to, the man fled into the garden courtyard in the back of the building. Within a timeframe of less than 30 seconds, 35-year-old officer Michael K. commanded him to stop and fired a warning shot before shooting the suspect in the neck. During the investigation, K. insisted that he had aimed for the legs, saying he was not used to the replacement sidearm he was using. No charges were brought against the officer. The deceased's mother, friends and neighbours criticised the officer for shooting an unarmed, fleeing man as well as opening fire where several children had been playing at the same time, also saying that the children suffered psychological damage from being repeatedly questioned by police about the incident. [372] [373] [374] [375] |
| 2014-08-01 | Haberstroh, Klaus | 55 | Freiburg | Baden-Württemberg | 32-year-old MEK officer Timo A., who was driving home from a late night police summer party under the influence of alcohol in his private car, caused a hit-and-run accident on A5. A motorcycle driver on the opposite lane was struck and killed in the head-on collision, while the car, rendered unoperable by the crash, came to a halt after going downhill off the road. The officer was left unharmed and fled the scene on foot, hiding at the house of two colleagues for the next nine hours to sober up before turning himself in; a manhunt had been underway for the officer during this timeframe. The policeman was charged with negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in prison and lost his job. An investigation into the colleagues for harboring a criminal was ceased. [376] [377] [378] [379] |
| 2014-08-11 | D., Robert | 37 | Goch | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man was running through a public park while swinging around a knife. Witnesses alerted police and when they confronted the man, he ignored all attempts at conversation, instead becoming aggressive and threateningly approaching the officers with his knife. The man was shot three times and died at the scene in spite of reanimation attempts by an ambulance. [368] [380] |
| 2014-10-20 | Mauch, Walter | 77 | Stadland | Niedersachsen | Police were called when a retiree called police over an argument with her husband, a retired physician. As police officers were questioning the wife and a caretaker, the man came down the stairs with a handgun and fired one shot at the officers. He refused to lay down his pistol and was shot once in the chest by a 24-year-old officer when he fired the weapon again. The gun turned out to be gas pistol and the officer was not held responsible for the death. Neighbors stated that the deceased had become eccentric in his later years, both while still a practicing doctor and in private, recommending and selling homeopathic supplements as well as heading a YouTube channel team that produced "alternative media" news. [381] [382] [383] |
| 2014-11-06 | N.N. | 23 | Kassel | Hessen | Police officers were trying to de-escalate an argument between a couple at their apartment in Wesertor when the boyfriend grabbed a 31-year-old police officer's gun and shot him and a 37-year-old policewoman with one bullet, heavily injuring them. A third officer subsequently shot and killed him. He was noted for prior charges related to drug crime. [368] [384] |
| 2014-12-04 | N.N. | 24 | Husum | Schleswig-Holstein | A Somali man slashed a married couple during an argument between asylum seekers at a refugee accommodation. Police were called after the couple managed to flee and shot the attacker when he stormed out of the home armed with several knives. [368] [385] [386] |
| 2014-12-29 | S., Michael | 46 | Moers | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man under the influence of alcohol and heroin was causing a disturbance at a hospital, where he attempted claim a bed for the night. Two officers, aged 30 and 33, were called to fetch the man and bring him to a drunk tank at the station, but a police physician said that due to keeping him there would be dangerous. The officers released the man, but after he caused another incident at a different hospital, they were told to drive him home to his trailer in Hülsdonk. Instead, they drove to the opposite end of town in Schwafheim and left him there. In the next hours, the man stood in the middle of the road and tried to flag down a car, being struck and killed by the vehicle of a known traffic offender. In December 2016, the officers were each tried and given six months probation for negligent homicide. The driver received a monetary fine. [387] [388] |
2015
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-01-13 | B., Michael | 45 | Gelsenkirchen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Neighbours reported a tenant walking around the hallway with a gun in his hands. By the time police arrived, he had barricaded himself in his apartment, necessitating the usage of SEK. The tenant was shot and killed with two shots in the chest when he aimed the gun, a gas pistol, at the officers who broke down his front door. An investigation found that the man was a "sympathizer" for local biker gangs, having falsely claimed recent membership to the Outlaws MC, and had voiced suicidal intentions shortly before the incident via WhatsApp. [389] [390] [391] |
| 2015-02-01 | N.N. | 31 | Bad Zwischenahn | Niedersachsen | A naked man was throwing objects out of his window on the streets and attacked police officers immediately when they arrived at his door. When he tried to stab a policeman who had lain on the ground, after pepper spray usage failed, another officer shot and killed him . [392] [393] |
| 2015-03-11 | Suscenko, Grigorij | 48 | Memmingen | Bayern | A Kazakhstani man was supposed to be fetched from his home to serve a year sentence in prison. When officers arrived, the man drew a knife and backed away from them down the street before officers gave chase. After being cornered in an alley, he charged at an officer who shot him three times as a result. It later became public that the previously convicted man had been sentenced for slander and defamation when he insulted a police officer who had come to take away his son to a foster family after his wife won custody over their daughter. The same officer was amongst the six officers sent to take him to prison as well as the one to be attacked and fire the killing shots. [394] [395] [396] |
| 2015-04-28 | N.N. | 40 | Grünstadt | Rheinland-Pfalz | Police was called to negotiate in a dispute between a married couple. When the officers arrived at the apartment, the husband tried to attack them with a knife. He was shot in the stomach and died later in hospital. [397] |
| 2015-05-17 | N.N. | 74 | Rodgau | Hessen | A retired man should be accompanied to a clinic. He refused to be brought there and shot at the paramedics and police officers, who responded fire, killing him. Due to the fact that he was a legal gun owner and the police was expecting resistance, a SEK was already present at the scene. [398] |
| 2015-07-11 | M., Jeremy | 29 | Holzgerlingen | Baden-Württemberg | A French man took the family of his 24-year old ex-girlfriend hostage at gunpoint, consisting of her parents and two teenage siblings. The girlfriend, who was not home at the time, was warned with a written message by her mother and contacted SEK, who were able to secure the hostages before attempting to arrest the man. When he pointed the gun at the officers, he was shot four times, three in the torso and one grazing him, leading to his death at the scene. A later analysis determined that the Modèle 1935A pistol the hostage-taker wielded was loaded with seven rounds, but could not have been fired effectively due to a round getting jammed between the barrel and the chamber. [399] [400] |
| 2015-08-05 | N.N. | 39 | Oberhausen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man got into an argument with a 21-year old man and his girlfriend in the vestibule of a police station, which ended with older man injuring the other in a stabbing. and when he refused to put away his knife, police officers fired several shots, killing him. [104] |
| 2015-09-17 | Yousef, Rafik Mohamad | 41 | Spandau | Berlin | An Iraqi Kurdish man was reported for threatening people with a knife. As the first police officer to arrive at the scene emerged from her vehicle, the man attacked, stabbing her in the neck just above her protective vest. Her partner immediately drew his gun and shot the knife-wielding man four times, also heavily injuring the female officer. The man was a member of the jihadist terrorist group Ansar al-Islam and had been previously convicted in 2004 for planning to assassinate Prime Minister of Iraq Ayad Allawi during his visit to Germany. He had removed the ankle bracelet he was required to wear since his release in 2013 only hours before his death. [401] [402] |
| 2015-10-29 | N.N. | 27 | Naumburg | Sachsen-Anhalt | Police was called to a video arcade, because a man under the influence of drugs was threatening an employee with a knife in an attempted robbery. The man ended up non-fatally stabbing the employee and attempted to take another woman hostage when police arrived. Two intervening officers were injured, one critically, before the man was shot by one of the officers. [403] [404] |
| 2015-11-02 | Öcal, Nurettin | 46 | Gronau | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police was called, because a dispute between a separated couple and their families on an open street got out of control. The ex-husband had a knife, which he used to stab towards the officers. He was shot twice and died. A ricochet also injured an uninvolved 17-year-old passerby. Police also had to fire two warning shots after the fact, as the deceased's former son-in-law was kicking and insulting the body. [405] [406] |
| 2015-12-01 | N.N. | 48 | Erfurt | Thüringen | In the case of the eviction of an apartment, the resident attacked police and firefighters with an axe. As the apartment was stormed, the resident injured an officer with the axe and was shot. He later died in hospital. [407] |
| 2015-12-10 | Harms, Jördis | 29 | Jever | Niedersachsen | 30-year old police officer Simon Onken killed his wife with his service pistol, before killing himself. The daughters of the couple, aged two and eight, were also at the scene, but left unharmed. The couple had separated once in the past and their relationship had apparently been deteriorating due to the officer's possessive actions, which included stalking. [408] [409] [410] |
| 2015-12-17 | N.N. | 61 | Nürnberg | Bayern | A police cruiser accidentally ran over a drunk man who was lying on a street at night in St. Leonhard. Although it was dark, a court determined that the street was sufficiently lit for the driver to have seen the man from a distance and he was given a monetary fine on 21 June 2016. [411] |
2016
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-01-01 | N.N. | 23 | Essen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A police car struck and killed a pedestrian while responding to a call. Officials said that the accident occurred because it was in the early morning hours and the woman was wearing dark clothing. The 28-year-old officer driving was lightly injured and his colleague treated for shock. [412] |
| 2016-03-02 | D., Goshi | 26 | Berlin | Berlin | Four burglars stole 8,000 euro worth of tobacco and alcohol in Werneuchen and escaped in a stolen car. Two unmarked police vehicle were able to stop the car in Marzahn as they drove back into the city, but as other officers went in for the arrest, the getaway driver took a sharp turn and accelerated again. An officer fired a shot at the vehicle, fatally hitting the driver, a Slovene national. Two of the burglars were arrested while the third escaped. The group were all ethnic Albanians living in a refugee accommodation in Köpenick and linked to an organized crime syndicate operating out of the Balkans. [413] [414] [415] |
| 2016-04-19 | Arslan, Katip | 32 | Emmerich | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Turkish Yazidi man was rampaging at a shop while under the influence of cocaine and amphetamine. He was chased by three police officers, who made use of batons and pepper spray to wrestle him to the ground to fixate him, also kneeing on his back. The man lost consciousness and died at the scene. He had a previous criminal record for possession of drugs, resisting arrest and injuring police officers; the day before his death, he had a court date for the aforementioned offenses. [416] [417] |
| 2016-05-05 | N.N. | 42 | Ludwigshafen | Rheinland-Pfalz | A police patrol in the city center was attacked by a homeless person with a knife. While one officer was wounded, the other was able to stop attacker with the use of his service pistol. [418] |
| 2016-05-06 | N.N. | 36 | Brachbach | Rheinland-Pfalz | Police was called by neighbors, informing that a man was rioting and screaming inside an apartment. He was armed with knives and did not follow orders to leave the house. When police raided the apartment the man attacked police officers. After the use of pepper spray to which he showed no reaction. In the following police shot the man, causing his death. [419] |
| 2016-05-29 | N.N. | 28 | Filderstadt | Baden-Württemberg | A man was waving around with a machete in a public area. When alerted police units arrived, the man attacked the officers. He was hit by gunshots, dying at the scene. [420] |
| 2016-06-23 | Moriello, Sabino | 19 | Viernheim | Hessen | A man clad in special forces fatigues and armed with a submachine gun and a pistol took 18 people hostage in a cinema screening the children's movie Zoomania . The hostage-taker was killed by the SEK during the rescue operation. It was reported, that the weapons used by the attacker were gas-based firearms and fake handgrenades. The attacker was identified as an unemployed man from Mannheim who had been living with his boyfriend in Gifhorn. He is suspected to have been mentally ill and instigated the hostage situation as an elaborate suicide by cop. A possible right-wing ideology was also suspected when anti-Turkish text messages surfaced, but not officially investigated by state authorities. [421] [422] [423] [424] [425] [426] |
| 2016-07-07 | N.N. | 31 | Groß Rosenburg | Sachsen-Anhalt | Police responded to an emergency call. A family of hunters had a serious argument, a member was threatening others with a handgun. Thus it was known, that several firearms are stored inside the house, a SEK took over control, killing the family's son that was armed with a revolver. [427] |
| 2016-07-13 | Thomas, Amos | 62 | Erharting | Bayern | Police was instructed to support the transfer of a special care home resident to a psychiatric hospital due to the Liberian national being a diagnosed schizophrenic. When police arrived, the resident attacked the officers with a knife, injuring both of them. He was killed by at least three gunshots. [428] [429] [430] |
| 2016-07-18 | Ahmadzai, Riaz Khan | 17 | Würzburg | Bayern | Würzburg train attack: An underage asylum-seeker from Afghanistan injured several passengers, four Hong Kong tourists and a German woman, with a hatchet. During his escape he was shot by a SEK. The investigation showed doubts in the terrorist's identity, origin and age. It is assumed that he was a Pashtun from Pakistan and got radicalized shortly before the attack, admitting himself to the IS, who referred to him as "Muhammad Riyad" during a report on Amaq. [431] |
| 2016-08-18 | N.N. | 53 | Dortmund | Nordrhein-Westfalen | SEK raided an apartment in Neuasseln to arrest its tenant, a suspected pimp wanted for child abuse and other violent crimes. The suspect opened fire on the officers, injuring at least one. During the shootout the suspect was killed. [432] [433] |
| 2016-09-27 | Fadl Hussein, Hussam | 29 | Berlin | Berlin | Hussam Fadl Hussein, an Iraqi refugee, was fatally shot by police outside of a refugee housing unit in Berlin-Moabit. Hussein, an electrician and former police officer, and his wife Zaman Gate had come to Germany in 2014 with their three children from Baghdad. Hussein called police to arrest another refugee, 27 year old Pakistani Tayyab M., who, according to the family and other residents, had pulled their six-year-old daughter behind a bush and tried to molest her. Once Tayyab M. was placed inside a squad car, Hussein sprinted towards the vehicle, at which point three officers shot at him. It is unclear due to several conflicting accounts whether Hussein was armed, with multiple police officers and eyewitnesses reporting that he was unarmed, while one of the shooters later presented a knife that allegedly belonged to Hussein, even though it was not seen or found at the scene, nor matching fingerprints or DNA were determined. Some newspapers stated that Hussein had yelled "You will not survive this!" while running towards the car, but police reports do not mention this. Tayyab M. admitted to molesting Hussein's daughter, stating "it was spontaneous, an opportunity presented itself - girl or woman, I didn't care", and was given six months probation before he was deported. [434] The prosecutor's office quit their investigation in 2021, but Hussein's widow filed a constitutional complaint, which was granted in August 2023, but denied in April 2024. [435] [436] [437] [438] [439] |
| 2016-10-17 | Demircivi, Taner | 39 | Bielefeld | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Turkish man was causing a disturbance in an apartment building after his separated wife threw him out of her flat during a visit because he was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine. Five police officers were dispatched and upon arrival, an officer immediately punched the man in the face while another used pepper spray on him. He was then tied-up and left in a prone position before losing consciousness. The man died at a hospital from cardiac arrest. [440] [441] [442] |
| 2016-10-17 | N.N. | 48 | Moers | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police was called to a traffic accident at Moers station after a car collided with a bicycle. The cyclist had initially fled the scene before being chased and returned by a witness, but upon noticing the police's presence, he pulled out a knife and walked towards the officers. After several warnings, three shots were fired, one hitting the man, who died later in hospital, even though the officers did successfully a CPR on him. [443] [444] |
| 2016-10-18 | N.N. | 34 | Hagen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man entered an insurance bureau in Kabel and got into an argument with one of the insurance agents working there. The man stabbed the 49-year-old employee several times with a knife and hit him with a machete. After the severely injured was fleeing outside and hiding in a nearby snack bar, the arriving police shot the man after he tried to attack the officers. The attacker, who had immigrated from Russia before the collapse of the Soviet Union as a child, was later described as an odd person with delusions, such as claiming contact with extraterrestrials and identifying a neighbor as a "shepherd from 10,000 years ago", as well as a prior record for injuring a person in a stabbing. The employee survived with heavy injuries. [445] [446] |
| 2016-11-06 | G., Pia | 18 | Hannover | Niedersachsen | A police vehicle collided head-on with a moped after the officers overtook a bus. The moped driver, a pizza delivery worker, died at a hospital from her injuries. The 53-year-old police officer driving the car, Rene H., and his 23-year-old colleague were driving to assist a fire department call and did not have their siren on. In 2017, a court convicted H. for negligent homicide and he was sentenced to a fine of 7650 euro. [447] [448] [449] |
| 2016-11-26 | N.N. | 37 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Police was called to an apartment building in Barmbek, where an Afghan resident was reported for wielding a knife in the stairway. When the officers encountered the man armed with two knives they used pepper spray on him, to which he didn't react. When being attacked, at least one officer fired upon the perpetrator, who died later in hospital despite emergency surgery. [450] [451] [452] |
2017
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-01-08 | N.N. | 43 | Duisburg | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man entered the foyer of a police station in Rheinhausen, broke a window and attacked two officers with a knife. After pepper spray usage failed, both officers fired once at the attacker, fatally striking him in the leg and neck. The same man had injured two men, aged 34 and 33, and a 23-year-old woman in three separate attacks in the previous hours. stabbing them in the hip, neck, and stomach respectively. [453] |
| 2017-01-25 | Lux, Ilse | 57 | Bonn | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A police car struck a pedestrian while driving back to the police station in Ramersdorf, with the 28-year-old officer acknowledging that he had overlooked the woman. Despite an off-duty paramedic immediately providing first aid to the injured woman, she died of severe head injuries at the scene. In May 2020, woman's widowed husband unsuccessfully sued the police department for damages. [454] [455] |
| 2017-01-31 | S., Daniel | 25 | Berlin | Berlin | Emergency responders called the police in assistance to a case of a man, who threatened to hurt others and kill himself in his apartment complex in Neu-Hohenschönhausen. He also threatened to shoot through his apartment door, while the paramedics were talking to the man. Police broke into the apartment through the door. When the man was not reacting to police orders to put a knife down, he was shot. No firearms were found in the flat. [456] |
| 2017-02-19 | N.N. | 30 | Herten | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called by a 72-year-old woman about a potential break-in after she heard glass shattering. In the building, the officers were attacked with a knife by the home invader who was subsequently shot. He was a Tunisian asylum seeker and had escaped a mental facility the same day. [457] |
| 2017-03-01 | N.N. | 63 | Koblenz | Rheinland-Pfalz | A police car struck an elderly pedestrian while pulling out of a police station's parking lot. The man died from his injuries at a hospital. Officials attributed the accident to insufficient pavement markings and bad lighting, despite it having taken place at noon at cloudy weather. [458] |
| 2017-03-17 | N.N. | 42 | Emmendingen | Baden-Württemberg | A 58-year old police officer shot his wife and dog with his service pistol, before killing himself. [459] |
| 2017-04-08 | N.N. | 33 | Pleidelsheim | Baden-Württemberg | A trio of burglars were caught by a police patrol after breaking into an office building. Two of them fled while the third attacked a 53-year-old officer with a sharp tool. The man was shot and heavily injured. The two other burglars, a man and a woman, both aged 26, as well as their 18-year-old getaway driver were caught three days after the shooting. The group were all identified as Hungarian nationals. The injured burglar died on 25 April at a hospital. [460] [461] [462] |
| 2017-04-12 | N.N. | 64 | Beetzseeheide | Brandenburg | A retiree was reported missing after he mentioned his plans to kill himself. Police found him in a forest near Gortz and were threatened by him with a gun. After he refused to listen to commands to put down the weapon, an officer injured him by shooting him in the thigh, but he managed to escape deeper into the woods. A SEK tracked the man down and fatally shot him officers when he pointed his gun at them. [463] [464] |
| 2017-04-16 | N.N. | 35 | Braunschweig | Niedersachsen | After rioting in a brothel a man was pepper sprayed by police officers and arrested. Later he died in police custody due to heart failure. [465] |
| 2017-04-16 | N.N. | 30 | Herne | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man was sitting on a disposed couch on the sidewalk and cutting himself with a large knife, due to which passerby and residents called police. Two officers were approaching the man when he suddenly got up and ran at the. After shouting several warnings, the male officer shot the man, heavily injuring him, also injuring the female officer with a ricochet. The attacker later died at a hospital. [466] |
| 2017-04-27 | Haile, Mikael | 22 | Essen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A resident in Altendorf called in a noise complaint because a neighbour, an Eritrean refugee, was singing loudly. When police knocked on the tenant's door, he opened with a knife in his hand. After ignoring repeated commands to put down the weapon, he was shot once in the heart. [467] [468] |
| 2017-05-04 | N.N. | 61 | Emmendingen | Baden-Württemberg | Police were called to a rehab center because a patient was behaving aggressively. When the officers arrived, one of them was attacked by the patient with a knife, and after he did not respond to pepper spray, another officer fired three shots, with at least one killing the attacker. [469] [470] |
| 2017-05-22 | N.N. | 40 | Bonn | Nordrhein-Westfalen | The residents of an apartment building in Plittersdorf called police after hearing loud noises coming from the neighbouring flat of a Hungarian couple. Because the front door was blocked off, officers entered over the balcony via a fire engine's ladder. Inside, they found the bodies of a 39-year-old woman and her three-year-old daughter, stabbed and strangled to death respectively. Police found the woman's heavily injured husband inside the locked bathroom, wielding a knife, and during a confrontation, the man attacked the officers, leading to him being fatally shot. It's assumed that the incident was a botched murder-suicide and that the man had failed to fatally wound himself before police arrival. [471] [472] [473] [474] |
| 2017-05-25 | N.N. | 46 | Echzell | Hessen | 57-year-old police officer Rainer K. killed his wife, a Polish national, with his service weapon before killing himself. A passerby had called police after hearing the couple arguing in their basement and despite attempts to negotiate, the officer shot himself in the head in front of the response team. [475] [476] |
| 2017-06-01 | Kabasakal, Savas | 42 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | A mentally ill Turkish man was subject to an eviction of his apartment in Höchst enforced by seven police officers. His wife, who was the official tenant, had stopped paying rent after being thrown out by her husband following an argument stemming from the fact that he had emptied most of the furniture and appliances without her knowledge, claiming they were "emitting radiation". Officers stated that the tall obese man had become physical while preventing entry and collapsed during the scuffle, being declared dead at the scene despite reanimation attempts. Police stated that he was on several medications and suffered from asthma due to which they believed his death was a result of a medical emergency. It was later revealed that the man was also heavily beaten by the officers and covered in bruises when paramedics found him, with police responding that the amount of force applied during the eviction was permissible. [477] [478] [479] [480] |
| 2017-06-03 | K., Mostafa | 41 | Arnschwang | Bayern | An Afghan asylum seeker took a five-year-old boy hostage with a knife in a refugee accommodation after injuring his 47-year-old Russian mother because he was angered by the children playing loudly. By the time police arrived, the man had slashed the boy's throat. An officer fired eight shots at the man, with one fatally striking him in the chest. Police attempted to provide first aid on the boy, but he died of blood loss. The deceased had previously served six years imprisonment for arson and was required to wear an ankle bracelet. During his sentence, he had converted to Christianity and because Christians were subject to persecution in his native Afghanistan, he could not be deported. He was still under supervision by federal authorities as part of his criminal rehabilitation program at the time of the killing. [481] [482] [483] [484] [485] |
| 2017-06-19 | P., Robert | 50 | Heidelberg | Baden-Württemberg | 44-year old police officer Daniel P. killed his brother with three shots from his service pistol, before committing suicide. The brothers had driven out to a camping site in Schlierbach, where the officer took his gun from the trunk and opened fire after an argument. [486] |
| 2017-07-11 | H., Daniel | 28 | Thale | Sachsen-Anhalt | A man threatened his grandmother with a Kalashnikov rifle in their shared home in Weddersleben. 20 officers from SEK and Kripo responded to the call. The man had locked himself in his room and fired on SEK when they entered the house, injuring a 27-year-old SEK officer before the attacker was fatally shot. Several more weapons, including blunt and sharp instruments, were found in the man's room. [487] [488] [489] [490] |
| 2017-07-30 | Sendi, Rozaba | 34 | Konstanz | Baden-Württemberg | 2017 Konstanz shooting: An Iraqi Kurdish man was thrown out of a night club after an argument with the owner, his brother-in-law. He returned shortly after wielding a M16 rifle and opened fire on the entrance, killing 50-year-old bouncer Ramazan Ögütlü and injured five more security personnel and guests with gunshots. Although fatally wounded in the face, Ögütlü was able to lock the door before losing consciousness, preventing the shooter from getting inside the booked-out venue. After a shootout with SEK, during which he injured an officer by shooting him in the helmet, the man was wounded by gunfire and died at a hospital a few hours later. The deceased had prior convictions for violent crime and drug offenses, was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time, and was also affiliated with the PKK. He bought the rifle through a 30-year-old Austrian contact from a 32-year-old German national living in Switzerland. On 30 June 2019, both men received monetary fines of 1500 franc. [491] [492] [493] [494] [495] [496] [497] [498] |
| 2017-08-04 | N.N. | 23 | Mittelherwigsdorf | Sachsen | Police were called by a 47-year-old woman because her son had threatened her with physical violence. When police arrived, the man approached the officer's with a butcher's knife in his raised hand and was shot three times from a short distance. He had a psychiatric record and was slightly inebriated at the time of his death. [499] [500] [501] [502] |
| 2017-10-04 | G., Borak | 45 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A man with a history of mental illness checked himself into a hospital in Bergedorf. After a check-up, a doctor suggested that he should be transferred to a stationary ward, with judge's approval, but upon being informed by nurses, the man pulled out two knives and threatened staff. Two police officers were called in and attempted to incapacitate the man with pepper spray while keeping him at bay with protective shields. He then attacked one of the officers, lightly injuring him, leading both 36-year-old and 28-year-old officers to open fire. He was heavily injured and stabilised after emergency surgery, but died in the evening. [503] |
| 2017-10-23 | N.N. | 54 | Alsfeld | Hessen | Police was called to a house where gunshots were heard. When the arriving police officers identified that the shots were live rounds, the SEK was called to handle the situation. Attempts to negotiate with the shooter - a drunk man - failed and he began shooting at the police officers. He was then shot twice and hit deadly. [504] [505] |
| 2017-10-28 | N.N. | 19 | Mörfelden-Walldorf | Hessen | A teenager got into an argument with a 24-year-old man, which ended with the former stabbing the other with a knife and stealing his backpack. Five police officers found him walking on a nearby street and commanded him to drop the knife. He instead approached the officers, and after several more warnings, three officers fired 26 shots in total, hitting him several times in arms, legs and one fatal shot to the chest. He died during medical care of an emergency physician at the scene. The three officers were investigated, but the shooting was ruled self-defense. [506] [507] [508] |
| 2017-12-08 | N.N. | 59 | Ernsthausen | Hessen | A mentally ill man attacked a 50-year old woman at his 60-year old girlfriend's flat with a broom, repeatedly hitting her in the head. Police restrained the man to perform an arrest, during which he collapsed and died of heart failure. [509] |
2018
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-01-13 | N.N. | 63 | Fulda | Hessen | A man was threatening his family with a pistol, firing at least one shot and repeatedly pointing the weapon at his 66-year-old brother. SEK were called in and subdued the man with a taser shot. He subsequently collapsed and was brought to a hospital, where he died. [510] |
| 2018-01-22 | N.N. | 41 | Darmstadt | Hessen | Police was called to a case of domestic violence at the home of a Kazakhstani family. Two officers arrived to find a man, the husband of the caller, armed with two knives waiting for them at the front door. He attacked them and died after both officers shot at him. [511] [512] [513] |
| 2018-01-29 | Martini, Fabien | 21 | Berlin | Berlin | A police cruiser driven by 50-year old officer Peter Gawronska was responding to a robbery, which later turned out to be a false alarm, in Berlin-Mitte when he crashed into the side of another car, killing the other motorist. Gawronska had been driving at 134 km/h and slowed to 90 km/h just before the collision. Initial investigation focused on possible wrongdoing by the deceased and it was widely reported that she may have distracted from using a phone, although this was ultimately determined to not be the case. In July 2019, it was revealed that Gawronska was being held on suspicion of manslaughter and had a 1,1 blood alcohol level at the time of the accident. The blood test was not approved as evidence until he was tried on 29 July and in December 2020, Gawronska was sentenced to 18 months probation and was fired. However, in September 2021, he was retried and instead given a fine of 12,900 euro, after the court stated that despite his intoxication, Gawronska's reaction speed was in line with that of a sober individual, which would mean that driving drunk had no impact in the crash, lessening his criminal responsibility. [514] [515] [516] |
| 2018-02-09 | Paksoy, Hamit | 43 | Wuppertal | Nordrhein-Westfalen | SEK raided an apartment to serve a warrant for attempted murder. The wanted person was the president of a boxing club that served as a known front for the Turkish nationalist biker club Osmanen Germania, of which he was a member. Police had been warned that the man owned two guns, but he was unarmed at the time and dressed only in an undershirt and towel. He was shot once in the chest, the bullet having passed through an arm he had thrown up in defense. The circumstances that led to the death were investigated by police and the persecutions office. In January 2019 it was concluded that the death of Hamit P. was a tragic accident. The officer interpreted the flash and blast of a stun grenade that was used as a gunshot and the cellphone in the victim's hand as a pistol. [517] [518] [519] [520] |
| 2018-03-01 | B., Bekir | 27 | Neubrandenburg | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | A female passerby reported an ongoing robbery occurring at a kiosk. Police were able to apprehend the three suspects, an uncle-nephew pair and a friend of the nephew, by drawing their guns, but one of them, a Turkish German from Berlin, used pepper spray on an officer, who shot the man in the torso. He died at a hospital the same day. The deceased and one of the accomplices were later linked to the Lebanese Miri-Clan, whose members and sympathisers threatened police on social media. [521] [513] [522] [523] |
| 2018-04-13 | Jabarkhil, Matiullah | 19 | Fulda | Hessen | An Afghan man was attacking a bakery's employee and was rioting outside the store. Arriving police was also attacked with stones and a baton he took from one of the officers. After the attacker was hit by several shots he bled to death. Criticism was raised upon the number of shots fired by police. 12 shots were fired, but only four hit the body, two were considered deadly. [524] |
| 2018-04-19 | F., Michael | 38 | Langenfeld | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police responded to an emergency call, that a man was firing a pistol from his balcony. The police decided to storm the apartment. When the SEK officers were being shot at while entering the apartment, they returned fire. The man later died in hospital. The gun was identified as gas pistol and police stated that the man had a history of drug abuse and visual hallucinations. [525] |
| 2018-05-11 | A., Tim | 24 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A police vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in Harburg while responding to a call about a suspected sex offender on the run. The officers did not see the man as he was obscured behind a parked truck before he stepped into their path. It was not stated how fast the police car was driving, but it stopped immediately after the accident and left a 50-meter skid mark. A court found the officer driving, 35-year old Gregor L., guilty of negligent homicide and determined that he had been over the limit at 125 km/h, receiving a fine of 7,200 euro in 2020. [526] [527] [528] |
| 2018-05-30 | J., Mahmood | 24 | Flensburg | Schleswig-Holstein | Flensburg stabbing: While travelling in an ICE train, a 22-year-old off-duty uniformed officer of the Bremen Police was stabbed in the face by a man with a knife as she went to exit at her stop. A 35-year-old fellow passenger separated the two and was severely injured before the officer fatally shot the attacker. The deceased was identified as an Eritrean refugee who had suspected psychiatric issues, having previously been put under supervision for assaulting another refugee by biting him on 6 April and hitting a neighbour in the head with an iron bar on 16 April. [529] [530] [531] |
| 2018-09-17 | Ahmad, Amad | 26 | Kleve | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Syrian Kurdish refugee was arrested in Geldern on 8 July on suspicion of sexual harassment for making lewd gestures at a group of women, which included the daughter of a police officer, who placed the call to her father's private phone. While being booked, police wrongly identified him as a wanted thief, a Malian refugee named Amedy Guira, who used a number of aliases including variations of "Ahmad Amed". Although there were several discrepancies such as height, place of origin, skin colour and age, the officer responsible did not compare the arrestee with the file photo they had and put him in detention. A police psychologist similarly claimed that her sessions with the refugee, in which he adamantly denied being Guira, were indicative that he was untrustworthy. Two months later, under unclear circumstances, a fire broke out in his cell. When the prison staff recognized the situation and acted, he was heavily injured and died five days later in hospital. It was later found that Amedy Guira had already been deported in January. [532] |
| 2018-10-19 | N., Tim | 25 | Kirchheim an der Weinstraße | Rheinland-Pfalz | A 56-year old woman called police, stating that her son had attacked her after experiencing a drug-induced psychosis. Two officers were dispatched to their residence, where they were attacked by the son, heavily injuring both a 31-year policewoman and her 56-year old colleague with a pair of scissors. The attacker was subsequently shot seven times, leading to his death at the scene. His mother was found to have died shortly before the officers' arrival from several stab wounds and head injuries inflicted by her son. The attacker was known to have psychiatric problems and recently relapsed into substance abuse after getting clean. [533] [534] [535] |
| 2018-10-22 | Dursun, Ümit | 43 | Nürnberg | Bayern | A man under the influence of drugs was trashing his apartment in Gostenhof and when SEK arrived, he threatened to jump from his balcony while breaking neighbours' flower pots. He was shot with a taser and then administered a sedative by a paramedic. The man then lost consciousness and died at a hospital the same night. [536] [537] |
| 2018-10-27 | N.N. | 39 | Braunschweig | Niedersachsen | Police was called to an apartment building, where two unknown intruders were yelling loudly and disturbing neighbors. When the two persons were fleeing, a third person came out of a neighboring house and walked towards the officers, armed with a handgun. When ignoring orders to put the gun down, police shot the man four times. The handgun later was identified as a gas pistol. [538] The police officers who wore plain clothes, but it is unclear if they identified themselves properly and/or if the victim did recognized them as police officers. [539] Testimony by neighbors of the deceased, who was serving secretary of the Wolfenbüttel chapter of the Red Devils MC, indicated that the intruders had attempted to break into the deceased's flat through the front door. [540] |
| 2018-11-04 | Lieser-Vaccaro, Anouk | 45 | Merzig | Saarland | 49-year old police officer Pascal Lieser-Vaccaro shot his wife with his service pistol, before killing himself. The wife had reportedly sought to divorce. [541] [542] |
| 2018-11-07 | L., Robin | 21 | Bad Oldesloe | Schleswig-Holstein | Police responded to an emergency call, reporting a man with a knife in front of a swimming hall. The described man was identified as a known homeless person, that was suffering from mental illness. Although he had committed minor crimes before, he was considered peaceful and no threat to the public. The man was ordered to put the knife down. Despite a warning shot and the use of pepper spray the man refused to follow the order and started stabbing in the direction of police officers. A 32-year old officer shot twice, hitting him in the chest. He died on the scene. [543] |
| 2018-11-26 | Rolf, Julian | 23 | Bonn | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Two police officers were in preparation to go to a shooting training at the main police station in Ramersdorf, when one shot from his partner's pistol hit a police officer's neck. He fell into a coma and died two weeks later. It is still unclear why and under which circumstances he was shot. It was leaked that investigators suspect that his partner, 22-year old Niklas H., accidentally mistook his real life gun with a training dummy pistol and wanted to scare his colleague. During the trial, the defense instead argued that he had been inspecting his gun when he was scared by a noise and instinctively pulled the trigger. On 1 September 2019, H. was sentenced to 2 years probation and a 3000 euro fine. [544] [545] |
| 2018-12-09 | N.N. | 28 | Rosa | Thüringen | A woman called police because her friend was being stalked by her ex-boyfriend from nearby Bad Liebenstein and had been seen holding a pistol. When the officers arrived at the scene, they were shot at from the man. He was hit and severely injured by return fire and died later in hospital. The deceased had stolen the weapon and ammunition from a relative, who was a sports shooter. [546] |
| 2018-12-16 | N., Rolf | 74 | Bochum | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Over the course of a day, police received several calls from a known alcoholic as well as complaints from his neighbours who reported him for disturbing the peace. After neighbours called over possible property damage, two officers were dispatched to the apartment building in Altenbochum to perform an arrest. The man did not respond to commands and instead pulled out a lighter in the shape of a revolver from his pants. The officers ordered the man to drop the weapon after which 35-year old officer Marcel B. fired three shots at the man, who died at the scene. Despite initial assumptions, it was found that the deceased was not intoxicated at the time and investigators concluded that he was likely suffering from mental illness and financial difficulties, possibly having planned the incident as a suicide by cop. The officer was tried for manslaughter, but found not guilty in 2021. [547] [548] |
| 2018-12-27 | L., Aristeidis | 36 | Berlin | Berlin | A Greek tourist with a history of mental illness had started a fight inside a bakery in Tempelhof. Police officers encountered him shirtless and vandalising the store's interior. He was arrested after heavily resisting and inside the police car, he repeatedly hit his head against the windows. At the station, despite being in hand and foot restrains, the man continued to resist officers, leading them to use pepper spray before four officers held him down in a prone position. The man subsequently lost consciousness and after receiving first aid and CPR, he was brought to an ICU, where he died on 12 January 2019 from the aftereffects of "positional asphyxiation". [513] [549] [550] [551] |
2019
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-01-18 | N.N. | 56 | Pirmasens | Rheinland-Pfalz | A man was severely resisting to be brought to a psychiatric hospital. A police officer used his taser against the man, who suffered a heart attack and died shortly after being transferred to the emergency room. [552] |
| 2019-02-28 | Konrad, Julian | 21 | Würzburg | Bayern | 19-year old Bereitschaftspolizei cadet Kai M. accidentally shot another fellow cadet inside police barracks. The unintentional discharge of the handgun occurred when the two cadets were alone in a room, shortly before going on guard duty. Even though investigations were not finished yet, the Minister of the Interior of the state of Bavaria Joachim Herrmann referred to the cause of the incident as a wrongly unloaded weapon. [553] |
| 2019-02-28 | N.N. | 46 | Solingen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police was called to help in a family conflict that escalated. A woman had a marital spat with her husband the previous day, after which he left and had returned home heavily intoxicated. Two officers arrived when the wife was running out of the house chased by her husband. While attempting to talk out the argument in the kitchen with the couple, the man grabbed an item off a counter and ran at the officers. A 24-year old officer opened fire on the attacker, who died later that night. Although it was initially reported that the husband was wielding a knife, it was determined in 2020 that he had actually been holding a vegetable peeler, after which the wife and daughter of the deceased filed for 200,000 euro in pain and suffering. [554] [555] [556] |
| 2019-04-11 | K., Peter | 28 | Salzgitter | Niedersachsen | A man called emergency services for medical assistance, saying that a person had been shot. Officers asked for SEK after the caller barricaded himself in the apartment and was seen with a "pistol-shaped object". The man threatened the SEK units with a gun and was shot after lengthy negotiations. He died shortly after from a bullet piercing his spine. His weapon turned out to be a toy gun. Inside the apartment, officers subsequently found the body of a 22-year-old man, who is presumed to have been murdered by the deceased several days earlier in what investigators suspect to have been a drug-related crime. [557] [558] [559] [560] |
| 2019-04-18 | W., Dieter | 77 | Bochum | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A witness called the police, because he saw a man on the local cemetery in Gerthe, armed with a rifle. Police officers felt threatened by the man and shot him three times in the chest. He died later in hospital. Investigations revealed that the man was a hunter, ordered to control the rabbit population. The hunter's wife, who was also present at the scene, claimed her husband lay down his rifle immediately when the officers arrived and the shots were fired while the hunter was kneeling on the ground. [561] |
| 2019-04-29 | N.N. | 27 | Hamburg | Hamburg | Police was called to help in an emergency situation where a man was acting aggressively at an auto shop in Dammtor and had beaten a mechanic. The attacker had been put into the office by his uncle and other employees, but when two officers arrived, the man attacked them with a knife, slashing a 20-year-old policewoman in the face before he was disarmed by his uncle and the other officer, who was also injured by repeated punches and kicks. The man was brought to the police station and had to be fixated, due to his aggressive behavior. After calming down, the fixation was freed. When being transferred to a cell he became aggressive again, so that enchaining was necessary. Shortly after his resistance he suffered from cardiac arrest and died in hospital on 6 May 2019. It was later found that the deceased had extensive stays at a psychiatric facility. The death occurred three days after that of 34-year-old Cameroonian national William Tonou-Mbobda , who was beaten and fixated by three hospital security guards because he left the psychiatric wing of the UKE, where he was being treated for schizophrenia, to smoke a cigarette by the entrance. Investigations were announced for both cases in May 2019, but each trial cleared the defendants of wrongdoing. [562] [563] |
| 2019-04-30 | N.N. | 49 | Frankfurt | Hessen | A physician called the police as backup by transferring a patient from his apartment in Ostend to a psychiatric hospital. When the discussion with the heavily overweight patient, who also suffered from diabetes, became aggressive, a taser was used against the man, who collapsed and vomited. He was brought to a hospital and died there four days later. The death was caused by pneumonia, as a long-term consequence of getting vomit to the lungs. [564] |
| 2019-05-22 | Osborn, Oisín | 34 | Hamburg | Hamburg | An Airbus engineer with dual British/Irish citizenship was fatally shot in Hausbruch after his wife called police, saying her husband was wielding a knife and acting erratically; he had blacked out all windows and brought kitchen implements into the bedroom to "protect [his family] from evil". Police encountered the husband out in a stairwell, wearing only his underwear, a home-made loincloth and a saucepan on his head. Officers opened fire when they saw a handle sticking out under the fabric, initially believed to that of a knife, but later found to be a spatula. His mother later stated that her son suffered from rapid mood swings after being prescribed medication to treat an allergy he developed following the birth of his newborn son ten days earlier, possibly in a case of sudden psychosis. In November 2024, the deceased's parents filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights to reinvestigate the killing and have the officer tried in court. [565] [566] [567] [568] [569] |
| 2019-06-18 | B., Adel | 32 | Essen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | An Algerian-born man with German citizenship was shot dead by the police in Altendorf after he called them and threatened to kill himself. He argued with the officers for several minutes, holding a knife he had used to cut himself. Police initially stated that when officers arrived, he rushed with the knife towards them and was shot. [570] After a few weeks, two smartphone videos were published on YouTube that contradict this version: The man was walking back into his apartment building with police a distance behind him when one officer ran forwards and shot the man from behind through the closed (glass panel) door. [571] [572] [573] Nevertheless, the local prosecutors' office closed the case against the policeman after two months, citing self-defence. [574] |
| 2019-07-21 | N.N. | 28 | Bruchsal | Baden-Württemberg | A man suspected of theft at a gas station in Karlsruhe was repeatedly fixated by six police officers during his arrest, at the local police station and subsequent transport to jail due to his heavy resistance, which included biting and spitting. He had to be reanimated at a hospital, where he died on 1 August. The circumstances that led to the man's death are unclear. [575] [576] |
| 2019-08-17 | Alizada, Aman | 19 | Stade | Niedersachsen | A resident at a refugee accommodation called police because another resident, an Afghan Hazara man with known mental issues, was threatening to damage his own room. Arriving officers saw from a window that the man was playing loud music and singing while holding a barbell. An officer kicked the door open and fatally shot the man five times in the torso. Police claimed that the man charged at the officer, but forensics showed the rounds struck downwards, suggesting a crouched, sitting, or lying position of the deceased, when the shots were fired. Officers also claimed that they unsucessfully used copious amounts of pepper spray on the deceased from the window before entering, but no trace of the chemicals were found at the scene. The death was heavily protested due to the deceased's age and ethnicity, and accusations of police misconduct. [577] [578] [579] [580] |
| 2019-09-11 | R., Pawel | 25 | Hellersdorf | Brandenburg | After receiving reports of a suspect wanted in connection with a murder hours earlier in Gorzów in neighbouring Poland, a car with a matching licence plate was stopped by police on A10. The driver then pointed a gun at the officers and after repeated commands to lower the weapon were ignored, the officers opened fire, mortally wounding the man, who died the same day at a hospital. The driver was identified as the fugitive, who had shot and killed his 26-year-old Ukrainian ex-girlfriend in the laundry room of their apartment building with the same gun he threatened police with. [581] |
| 2019-10-30 | N.N. | 45 | Recklinghausen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police responding to an emergency call were confronted by a man who grabbed a pocket knife upon seeing the officers. After being repeatedly warned to drop the weapon, he approached the officers and was shot as a result. The bullet hit an artery, to which he died in hospital later. [582] [583] |
| 2019-11-01 | N.N. | 55 | Ahrensburg | Schleswig-Holstein | Police arrested a car driver, who resisted heavily. Through the fixation, he suffered from a heart attack, that led to his death. [584] |
| 2019-11-02 | N.N. | 26 | Hoppstädten-Weiersbach | Rheinland-Pfalz | An Eritrean homeless man attacked a member of a tennis club with an axe after an argument, also damaging his car as he drove off. Police confronted him, but he fled after being pepper sprayed, later being found crouching near a storage shed on the tennis club grounds. As officers approached the man, he suddenly jumped at them and he was shot in the head as a result. [513] |
| 2019-11-02 | N.N. | 52 | Lübeck | Schleswig-Holstein | Police were called by a visitor of the city park in St. Gertrud because a threatening man had spoken to him and his daughter. The man shot at arriving police with a gas pistol, with the officers firing 8 shots in return, with two fatally striking the shooter in the torso. The deceased had an extensive criminal record for violent crime and robberies, and was on probation at the time of the incident. It is presumed to be a suicide by police incident. [585] |
| 2019-12-07 | M., Max | 25 | Wuppertal | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man was using a hammer to break car mirrors and threaten passerby. He was shot six times in the torso after he attacked called-in police officers. [586] |
| 2019-12-15 | N.N. | 44 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | The family of a resident in Waldhof called police because he had been acting "erratic". When the officers arrived, the man proceeded to cut himself with a knife and attacked them with a knife and was shot. [587] [588] |
| 2019-12-28 | N.N. | 32 | Stuttgart | Baden-Württemberg | Police were called after a car in Vaihingen drove the wrong way in a roundabout and crashed into an advertising column. When officers arrived, the driver and his passenger, both Serbian nationals, attempted to escape on foot. Two officers chased after them and when they caught up to the driver, he attacked them with a sword. After pepper spray proved ineffective, they shot the driver multiple times. He died later in hospital. Questioning of the passenger, who was the driver's 69-year-old mother, as well as the search of their apartment in Balingen indicated that the deceased had been mentally ill and hoarded weapons, including a crossbow, another sword and multiple gas pistols. [513] [589] [590] |
2020s
2020
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-06 | Bulgu, Mehmet | 37 | Gelsenkirchen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Turkish citizen was damaging a patrol car with a club outside of a police station. He attacked two officers, aged 23 and 41, that confronted him with a knife, leading to the younger police recruit firing four shots the man, hitting him at least once. Although the man had yelled " Allahu Akbar " and was stated to have previously claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, an investigation concluded that he was mentally ill (the man had said he used to live in the territory of the Islamic State and that "Nazi Germany broke [his] brain") and had no verifiable ties to any terrorist organisation. He had a lengthy criminal record for slander and property damage, most recently an incident in which he tried to log a piece of forest to "build a shrine to Allah" without a permit. [513] [591] [592] [593] [594] [595] |
| 2020-01-24 | B., Maria | 33 | Berlin | Berlin | A man called police because his roommate, who had suspected mental and drug problems, was threatening him with a knife at their apartment in Friedrichshain. She refused to leave her room when four officers arrived and attacked them when they opened the door. After issuing several warnings, a 28-year-old officer then fatally shot her once in the torso. The woman's death was heavily protested due to unfounded claims that she was killed due to her links with the local antifa movement. Neighbors also pointed out that the deceased, who suffered from multiple sclerosis and weighed in at less than 50 kg, should have been easily overpowered by four armed officers. [596] [597] [598] [599] |
| 2020-02-03 | N.N. | 66 | Vellmar | Hessen | Two police officers stopped and arrested a drunk driver suspected of crashing his vehicle. During the drive, as they were about to reach the police station for the suspect to undergo a blood test, the man pulled out a knife and threatened to stab the officer next to him. Both officers exited the car and locked the man inside, but after cutting himself with the weapon and breaking the car window, he stepped out and rushed at the officers, who opened fire. He was shot multiple times as the initial shot did not slow his advance, causing his death at the scene shortly after. The three officers involved were investigated, but not charged in March 2021. [600] [601] |
| 2020-02-14 | N.N. | 30 | Berlin | Berlin | A police car was responding to a call about an ongoing armed robbery when the officers struck and killed a pedestrian in Marzahn. The man had been obscured behind a parked bus at the stop. No investigation occurred after the officer driving passed an alcohol test and was found to have upheld the speed limits. [602] |
| 2020-04-03 | F., Annabelle | 10 | Vogtareuth | Bayern | 36-year old federal police officer Ramona F. killed both of her daughters with her service pistol, before killing herself. It was initially reported by media that the lingering effects of abuse during the officer's childhood and workplace bullying were considered factors in the killings, but the latter was refuted by investigators, who believed that the married officer was motivated by her lover breaking up with her. [603] [604] [605] |
| F., Vivien | 12 | ||||
| 2020-04-16 | N.N. | 32 | Düsseldorf | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Following a family dispute in Lierenfeld, a man threatened his parents with a crossbow and a gun, firing several gunshots from a window. When SEK arrived, the man was seen handling a makeshift explosive before he shot a police dog with a bolt and shot at the officers with his firearm. He was fatally wounded when police returned fire and died at the scene. [606] |
| 2020-04-25 | N.N. | 40 | Dormagen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called to a house after reports came in of a possible violent crime having taken place. At the scene, officers were met with a "suspicious individual", who was fatally shot once under unclear circumstances and died despite immediate resuscitation attempts. A search of the house revealed that the deceased had murdered his 74-year-old father. [607] |
| 2020-04-28 | N.N. | 26 | Harsum | Niedersachsen | A couple in Hüddessum called police because their son was trying to kick down their front door. The son attacked the two responding officer with a pitchfork, heavily injuring them, before he was shot twice in the legs by a 58-year-old officer, later dying at a hospital. [608] |
| 2020-05-08 | N.N. | 67 | Osnabrück | Niedersachsen | A man was supposed to be involuntarily committed to a mental institution when he attacked the workers sent to fetch him. Three police officers were sent to assist and were attacked by the man with a knife. He was then shot twice and was found dead after he retreated back to his flat. [609] |
| 2020-05-26 | Bündgens, Peter | 37 | Aachen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | On 25 May, two mental patients with convictions for robbery escaped a psychiatric hospital in Bedburg-Hau after threatening two nurses with a knife. They engaged police in a car chase before one of them took a woman hostage at a school playground. After ignoring several warnings, the hostage-taker was fatally shot by two officers, who each fired one shot. The other man, 47-year-old Stefan Kümmel, who had been threatening a young mother from a distance, then surrendered and was arrested without incident. [610] [611] |
| 2020-06-18 | Idrissi, Mohamed | 54 | Bremen | Bremen | Police were called to assist a landlady and housing staff in Gröpelingen during the inspection of an apartment, as the resident, who was due to be evicted for causing water damage, had known mental issues; he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was known to compulsively flood his apartment for "cleaning". Although the man was cooperative during the inspection, officers wanted to bring him to the police station to evaluate his state of mind as they found the landlady's request unusual, suspecting he might be a danger to others since the water damage could have caused electrical accidents. The man refused and pulled out a knife after being confronted in the courtyard by the two officers, who had called two plainclothed officers as backup. Cell phone video by a neighbour showed that the officers talked to the man for several minutes, attempting to convince him to lay down the knife. He was eventually startled by an officer's movement, adopting a "boxer pose", causing a 23-year-old officer to use pepper spray on the man, who proceeded to charge at the officer. After taking several steps backwards, the officer shot his attacker twice, leading to his death at a hospital. As the deceased was originally from Morocco, a racial debate ensued in regards to the police's seemingly unorganised actions, including that the officers had failed to wait for medical professionals with a background in psychology to show up before informing the man about an evaluation. [612] [613] [614] |
| 2020-06-18 | Diallo, Mamadou Alpha | 23 | Twist | Niedersachsen | A Guinean asylum seeker threatened several persons inside a doctor's office and the nearby apartment building he lived in with a knife. He was shot in the leg by a police officer. He died in a hospital the next morning. [513] [615] [616] |
| 2020-07-07 | N.N. | 57 | Mainz | Rheinland-Pfalz | A Russian man attacked a 76-year-old neighbour with a knife in a senior citizen community, injuring him in the face and arm. He barricaded himself in his apartment afterwards and as police were waiting for SEK to arrive, the man opened the door and walked towards the officers with his knife drawn. After pepper spray and a taser shot didn't stop him, police fired four gunshots, with three fatally hitting the man, who died at the scene. [617] [618] |
| 2020-07-15 | N.N. | 29 | Bad Schussenried | Baden-Württemberg | Two mental patients escaped from a psychiatric facility where they had both been involuntarily committed for numerous years. When they were caught by three police officers, the pair, both armed with knives, threatened the officers, with the male patient chasing after one of them while the 43-year old female patient kept the other two at bay. The officer eventually shot his pursuer in the hip, while the other two shot the woman in the thigh. The woman survived with critical injuries while the man died at a hospital. [619] |
| 2020-10-05 | N.N. | 54 | Leichlingen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police officers were called to help in a case of a family dispute. A man was in a fight with his sister. To stop the martial artists heavy resistance, he was fixated on the ground where he suffered a cardiac arrest. [620] |
| 2020-10-16 | N.N. | 40 | Münster | Nordrhein-Westfalen | An inmate convicted of resisting arrest took a 29-year-old female guard-in-training hostage with a double-sharpened toothbrush shiv and demanded a getaway helicopter, despite being due to be released on 10 November. The inmate was shot four times by SEK to save the guard's life, partially owing to him being noted "unpredictable"; the hostage later stated that the inmate, a known alcoholic, claimed to be "the son of the Virgin Mary" and "Thor from the movies", and insisted he needed to be released to "get to a red house in Spain to get [his] hammer to defeat the coronavirus". [621] [622] [623] [624] |
| 2020-10-30 | N.N. | 30 | Dornstetten | Baden-Württemberg | A police car responding to a call struck and killed a pedestrian while driving on B28. The woman was jaywalking and had suddenly stepped onto the highway, with investigators unable to confirm whether it was an accident or suicide. [625] [626] |
| 2020-11-10 | I., Rosario | 46 | Tegernsee | Bayern | An Italian man had taken his long-time girlfriend, a 25-year-old Romanian national, and their infant son hostage. He refused to listen to police and demanded to speak to his adult son. After the son was unable to convince his father to surrender, officers stormed the premises and fatally shot the man after he stabbed his girlfriend. Both died of their injuries at the scene. [627] [628] |
| 2020-11-12 | N.N. | 58 | Erligheim | Baden-Württemberg | A bank employee reported a pair of suspicious men lurking outside her workplace. One of the robbers was shot after he attacked police with a 35 cm long screwdriver. He and a 29-year-old accomplice had attempted to break open an ATM with explosives. The deceased robber, a Lithuanian national, was found to have been wanted throughout Europe for similar crimes and was most recently linked to a bank heist on 20 October, when he and his new partner blew up several ATMs in Besigheim and stole 135,000 euro. [629] [630] [631] |
2021
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-01-06 | N.N. | 65 | Mülheim | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police was called to a house, because of loud noise. There a man shot at SEK with a revolver, after which he was shot in the heart and head. It was later revealed that the man had been arguing with a 55-year old ex-girlfriend and neighbor, and fired three gunshots at her front door. [632] [633] [634] |
| 2021-03-06 | Khalaf, Quosay Sadam | 19 | Delmenhorst | Niedersachsen | An Iraqi Yazidi man was beaten and peppersprayed after he attempted to escape police when he was caught smoking marijuana in a public park with a friend. He had been denied medical attention by both the police officers and attending paramedics. The man died at a hospital in Oldenburg the next day, with his cause of death being listed as circulatory failure due to oxygen deprivation compounded by "blunt trauma to the head, torso, and extremities". An investigation into the death was ceased in June 2021. [635] [636] |
| 2021-04-13 | Manczak, Karsten | 51 | Liebenburg | Niedersachsen | 50-year-old federal police officer Martin G. killed his friend after coaxing his way into the victim's house. The officer had become obsessed with the victim's wife and killed him in hopes of entering a relationship with her. G. was convicted of murder in April 2023, but the murder method and body's location remain unknown, though investigators generally suspect usage of a crossbow and that the body was hidden using concrete blocks. [637] [638] |
| 2021-04-24 | N.N. | 59 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Three police officers were sent to arrest a woman wanted for a hit-and-run at her brother's apartment in Bickendorf. The drunk father of the siblings disrupted the process and insulted the officers. Two more officers were called in, after which the father was wrestled to the ground, where he was beaten and kicked repeatedly, suffering two broken ribs, which were not given medical attention by police. Two months later, the man died of sepsis related to pneumonia caused by insufficient treatment of the rib injuries. The officers initially denied that any physical harm had occurred, supported by some eyewitnesse testimonies, but were implicated by a text message made by the 40-year old team leader, who wrote that he "slapped someone down just now" the day of the incident. The five officers involved were tried with dangerous assault starting November 2023. [639] [640] [641] |
| 2021-05-28 | K., Omar | 36 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A Lebanese refugee was threatening passerby in Winterhude with a knife while shouting "Allahu Akbar". Arriving police unsuccessfully attempted to incapacitate him with pepper spray and taser usage before an officer shot and killed the man with seven shots when he ignored further commands to put down the knife. The deceased had previously been convicted in 2019 for attempted rape in Ellerbek, which was highly publicised because the victim, a 23-year-old Russian au-pair, had bit off part of his finger, which contributed to his arrest. [642] [643] [644] |
| 2021-06-13 | N.N. | 35 | Wuppertal | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A woman called police after her neighbour rang her doorbell at midnight and accused her of stealing from his room. Officers were unable to receive a response despite repeated knocking and verbal commands and as they discussed whether they should force open the locked door to the neighbour's apartment, the tenant opened the door and threw a knife. He was shot three times when he approached the officers while holding a club and a bladed object. [645] |
| 2021-06-22 | Atasoy, Soner | 41 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | A woman in Griesheim called police to report multiple loud voices coming from a neighbouring flat. The call was treated as a potential hazardous situation, despite the shift leader emphasizing that the tenant was "harmless", and three police officers and a police recruit were dispatched to respond. After knocking on the door, the tenant opened the door, wearing a bullet-proof vest with a knife attachment and after an "aggressive exchange", the man shoved an officer down the stairs, pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the officers, who then shot him multiple times. As he was able to lock the door on the officers, SEK was called to force open the apartment, where they found the man dead from a gunshot wound; he had died approximately two-and-a-half hours after being shot. The gun was identified as a gas pistol. The man already had a criminal record for multiple counts of assault, as well as a history of recurrent psychosis, specifically repeated self-talking and nightmare-induced screaming. Two officers were tried in court after the deceased's family claimed that the official report conflicted with the man's character, but neither were charged. [646] [647] [648] [649] [650] |
| 2021-06-24 | N.N. | 45 | Freudenstadt | Baden-Württemberg | Police were called when a woman reported that her husband had beaten her. As they were trying to defuse the argument between the couple, the husband pulled out a knife and attacked the officers, being shot twice by one in response and dying at the scene. [651] [652] [653] |
| 2021-08-25 | I., Abdul | 39 | Groß-Gerau | Hessen | A Somali man injured his wife, mother-in-law and two neighbours with an onion knife following an argument. The man had reportedly been suffering from chronic insomnia, but was refusing to go to a doctor despite his family's insistence. Police confronted him in a parking lot and ordered him to put down the knife. Officers fired 14 shots, five of which struck the man in the torso and legs and died as paramedics tended to him; the fatal round had ricocheted off his arm and hit vital organs in the chest. [654] [655] [656] |
| 2021-10-03 | N.N. | 39 | Garbsen | Niedersachsen | A man called police and made "incoherent statements", leading to officers being dispatched to check on a possible psychiatic situation. SEK was called when the man threatened the officers with a knife and incapacitated him with a taser shot. He died 15 hours later at a hospital from multiple organ failure, a compounding factor being that the recovering alcoholic was suffering from withdrawal for two days. [657] [658] |
| 2021-10-03 | Ibrahim, Kamal | 40 | Stade | Niedersachsen | A Sudanese man with psychiatric issues was threatening people while intoxicated, leading to the police being called three separate times. The first two incidents were resolved through talking, with the man voluntarily entering custody and spending five hours in a drunk tank. When police responded a third time at the man's residence at a refugee accommodation, he was found threatening other residents with a knife before charging at the officers and was shot 13 times. [578] [659] [660] |
| 2021-10-06 | N.N. | 53 | Neustadt an der Weinstraße | Rheinland-Pfalz | Residents called police because a man was screaming on the street below and blocking people from entering the building. He attacked arriving police, injuring a 26-year-old policewoman with a kick in the head, before he was pepper sprayed and tasered. He lost consciousness and died at a hospital from cardiac arrest. [661] [662] |
| 2021-10-15 | N.N. | 83 | Neuss | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called because an elderly pedestrian was walking on the Neuss-West Interchange on A46. A squad car was dispatched to secure the man and as the officers rounded into the interchange, they accidentally struck the pedestrian, who died of his injuries at the scene. The officer driving was unharmed while his colleague suffered light cuts from broken glass during the collision. [663] [664] |
| 2021-11-01 | Zantiotis, Giórgios | 24 | Wuppertal | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called by a taxi driver because he believed an argument between his two passengers was escalating. Officers arrived at the scene to find a man "behaving aggressively" towards his sister and arrested him by putting him in a prone position while one officer held him down with a knee on his back. During an attempted blood test at the station two hours later, the man collapsed and could not be resuscitated. His cause of death was attributed to heart failure due to weight-related cardiomegaly and amphetamine usage, as shown by both the official autopsy and a second one ordered by the deceased's family. [665] [666] |
| 2021-12-04 | Limp, Laurent | 19 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | On 3 December, police arrested a teenager and his friend after the latter kicked a parked truck, after which the truck driver claimed the other was carrying a knife. Although no knife was found, both were arrested and put into temporary holding cells. The teenager from Bonn showed signs of intoxication and while questioning revealed he was under the influence of alcohol, tilidine and diazepam, no medical attendant was alerted and he was instead sent to a drunk tank. When the teenager was due to be released the next morning, officers, who thought the occupant had been sleeping, noticed he wasn't breathing. First aid, reanimation and hospitalisation followed, but the teenager died in intensive care on 6 December from hypoxia-related brain damage with cerebral edema as well as kidney failure. The deceased's family sought an investigation for neglected duty to rescue. [667] |
| 2021-12-26 | N.N. | 35 | Herford | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man injured his girlfriend with a knife. After she called police, the man threatened officers with a gas pistol. He was shot and died at a hospital in Bielefeld on 28 December. [668] |
2022
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-02-16 | N.N. | 58 | Kirchheim unter Teck | Baden-Württemberg | A 59-year-old LKA police officer killed his wife with his service weapon before killing himself. The officer had waited for his wife in the parking lot of her workplace at a supermarket and after killing her, he entered his car and shot himself in the head. The wife had previously reported the officer for threatening her to his colleagues. An investigation into whether the police department may have been aware of the officer's intent to murder was halted in January 2023. [669] [670] [671] [672] |
| 2022-02-25 | M., Petar | 47 | Gunzenhausen | Bayern | A man set his house on fire after previously causing a disturbance by throwing things on the boardwalk. While the fire department were extinguishing the flames, the man attacked police first responders with a knife, who, after pepper spray proved ineffective, shot him two times, causing his death at a hospital the same night. [673] |
| 2022-03-10 | Scherschin, Daniel | 31 | Hagelstadt | Bayern | A woman called police because a man had assaulted her husband, after the latter asked the stranger to stop setting dry leaves on fire. Officers apprehended the man, a diagnosed schizophrenic, and fixated him on the ground after binding his hands and feet. He lost consciousness shortly after and died from cardiac arrest. The officers' bodycams were switched off at the time and the autopsy contrary to the police report that the deceased's body bore several bruises. [674] [675] |
| 2022-04-12 | N.N. | 50 | Neukirchen-Vluyn | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A police patrol was sent to a flat where a tenant was reportedly throwing objects out of the window while shouting incoherently. The man then threatened the officers with a butcher's knife. SEK was called in, who shot the man when he attacked them as well. [676] |
| 2022-04-20 | K., Marcel | 39 | Berlin | Berlin | Police found three homeless men loitering inside a building's staircase in Niederschöneweide at night. Two of the men left upon being asked, while the third argued with the officers and attacked them by tossing a beer bottle and throwing punches at them. The officers used pepper spray on the man and had fixated him on the ground when he experienced shortness of breath before collapsing. He was reanimated but died at a hospital on 27 April. [677] [678] |
| 2022-05-02 | Paponja, Ante | 47 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | Police were called by a psychologist of the ZI , who was concerned for the wellbeing of an outpatient diagnosed with schizophrenia and anxiety disorder and asked for assistance in finding him. Two officers accompanied the doctor in looking for the man, eventually finding him walking near Mannheimer Marktplatz in Schönau. The officers then attempted to perform a search of his person, to which the man resisted, leading to a struggle. Video footage filmed by bystanders showed the incident, in which the officers were seen holding the man down on the ground, with a 27-year old officer striking the man in the head four times. The man lost consciousness after collapsing during the arrest and although he was resuscitated by the doctor at the scene and brought to the University Hospital Mannheim, he died the same day from hypoxia, never regaining consciousness. The death led to allegations of police brutality and discrimination, as the victim, born in Heidelberg, was of Croatian descent and citizenship. The officer was tried and on 3 March 2024, he was sentenced to 6000 euro fine. [679] [680] [681] [682] |
| 2022-05-10 | N.N. | 31 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | A man threatened to kill himself during an argument with his mother at their home in Waldhof, who called police while her son repeatedly cut himself with a knife. Police attempted to incapacitate the man with tear gas, but when this did not work, they decided to shoot him in the leg. The man was brought to a hospital where he died of the gunshot wound. [683] |
| 2022-08-02 | Farah, Amin | 23 | Frankfurt | Hessen | A hotel in the red-light district of Bahnhofsviertel informed police, that a man was armed with a knife and threatening other guests. It was later found that the man had met with two prostitutes he hired in one of the hotel rooms and tried to force them to use drugs. When they declined, he pulled out a knife and after they fled, the man continued to act erratically. By the SEK arrived in the hotel, the man had returned to his room, sitting in the doorframe of the bathroom. Officers sent in a police dog, which bit into the man's arm, causing him to stab and heavily injure the animal. SEK then fired six shots, with five hitting the man in the arm, shoulder, chest, and head. It was initially reported that the man succumbed to his wounds the same day, but later revised their statements, confirming he died instantly from the headshot. He was identified as a homeless person originally from Somalia and recent resident of Jijiga, Ethiopia, with an intensive criminal record of violence and drugs. According to family, he had immigrated to Darmstadt at 16 for work, but quit his career and began using drugs after his wife abroad was murdered in 2019. The officer who fired the killing shots was investigated, but no charges were brought up after the shooting was deemed self-defense. The deceased's brother has filed a complaint from Jijiga, saying police never communicated surrender or had their lives endangered. [684] [685] [686] [687] [688] |
| 2022-08-03 | Berditchevski, Jozef "Jouzef" | 48 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Jewish Russian busker known for performing outside the Kölner Philharmonie attempted to attack a bailiff and her police escort with a knife while they were serving a court-ordered eviction in his apartment in Ostheim. Officers used pepper spray on the man and then shot him twice. He had been drunk and was noted to have a psychiatric record, most recently having made a suicide threat in June when the eviction was announced. The investigation into the killing was stopped six months later. [689] [690] [691] |
| 2022-08-07 | Dramé, Mouhamed Lamine | 25 | Dortmund | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A social worker at a youth home for unaccompanied minors in Nordstadt called police about a Senegalese refugee, who had voiced suicidal intentions while pointing a knife at his stomach. Twelve police officers were dispatched and during the confrontation, the man was shot five times in the stomach, jaw and arm, dying during treatment in an ambulance. The shooting was prominently reported on due to allegations of poor police training to mental health crises, possible racial discrimination, and a lack of transparency from the NRW government, law enforcement, and later the deceased's family. Although audio from the incident was recorded because the phone call wasn't ended properly, the exact circumstances were initially unclear and it was claimed by the NRW's ministry of home affairs that the deceased had attacked the officers. In November, however, the officers admitted to lying about the chain of events. The deceased had never pointed the weapon away from himself, having remained in a squatting position with his head in his knees, and only became roused when he was pepper sprayed without warning, at which point the man ran at the officers, who were in the way of the only exit route, causing three of them to simultaneously opened fire, two with tasers and another with a submachine gun. The body cameras were also all shut off, but this was later shown to be in line with protocol mandating that possible cases of suicide attempts are not to be filmed. Five of the officers were tried beginning 19 December 2023, the one who fired the killing shots for negligent homicide, the team leader for incitement and three others for dangerous assault. They were all found not guilty on 12 December 2024. On part of the victim, it came to light that much of his background was unverified and partially fabricated. Though he was registered as a 16-year-old Malian national, he had lied about his actual age, with Spiegel TV reporting that he was really 25 years old, his family and Facebook profile giving the birthyear 1997. There are also conflicting reports about his inability to understand German, after it published that he was investigated for sexual harassment, after a woman who was solicited for sex and chased by an unidentified black male on 3 July 2022, gave a description led to the temporary arrest of Dramé by police. The suspect had asked if she spoke French, Spanish or English, with the latter two languages having been used to communicate with Dramé, but it could not be found if he was truly the perpetrator in the case. [692] [693] [694] [695] [696] [697] [698] [699] |
| 2022-08-07 | H., Sascha | 39 | Oer-Erkenschwick | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man under the influence of drugs was rampaging in an apartment following what was suspected to have been a domestic argument with a woman. He heavily resisted as police were attempting to arrest the man in front of the building and after pepper spray didn't affect him, he was fixated on the ground in a prone position. The man lost consciousness and died the same night at a hospital. Around 150 people witnessed the arrest, some attesting that the man made complaints about being unable to breathe, and it is alleged that those who had filmed the incident had their phone confiscated and the videos deleted by the officers. Police put the officers under investigation for assault and tampering with evidence and have contracted an IT firm to restore the footage for analysis. [700] |
| 2022-09-04 | N.N. | 23 | Berlin | Berlin | Police shot and killed a Kosovar man with two shots at an apartment in Lichtenberg after he allegedly killed a 27 year old Ukrainian woman with an axe following an argument. [701] [702] |
| 2022-09-07 | W., René | 36 | Leipzig | Sachsen | After he was caught shoplifting beer and potatoes at a supermarket, a man returned to the store to threaten the employees with a knife. Police came to arrest the man at his home and was shot twice when he tried to stab the officers. He died of his injuries at a hospital. [703] |
| 2022-09-08 | N.N. | 30 | Ansbach | Bayern | An Afghan refugee attacked a 17-year-old at the main train station, strangling and stabbing him as well as a 20-year-old man who managed to disarm him. The man then charged at arriving police officers who shot and killed him. Although Islam extremism was considered a motive due to the attacker yelling "Allahu Akbar", police did not label the stabbing a terrorist incident, but rather attributed it to the fact that he was about to face deportation due to convictions for a sex crime and possession of drugs, also noting that he had apparently been abusing anti-depressants. [704] [705] |
| 2022-09-14 | Mutombo, Kupa Ilunga Medard | 64 | Berlin | Berlin | A Congolese man with schizophrenia was supposed to be transported from a care center in Spandau to a psychiatric hospital. After medical attendants had failed to convince the man to come with them, three police officers attempted to forcefully remove him from his room. The man's caretaker said that the officers had repeatedly punched his patient in the head while they kept him fixated on the ground, with one officer kneeing on his neck, which police justified because the elderly man had attempted to hit, kick and bite them. The man fell into a coma and died three weeks later on 6 October from "hypoxia-related brain damage". [706] [707] [708] |
| 2022-10-19 | N.N. | 44 | Dortmund | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A homeless man was damaging cars while yelling for help in a street in Dorstfeld. He attacked arriving police, punching one officer and attempting to drive away in a squad car before he was shot with a taser, immediately collapsing. Officers performed CPR until an ambulance arrived to take him to a hospital, where he died as a result of a heart attack. An autopsy showed that the man was a heavy alcoholic and had severe tachyarrhythmia. [709] [710] |
| 2022-10-24 | R., Timo | 31 | Zülpich | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man attempted to break down the door to his parents' house after finding they had changed out the locks in response to his entering and theft, also damaging his own car outside. When two police officers arrived, he attacked a 25-year-old policewoman with a knife and held it to her throat before he was fatally shot once in the head by her 35-year-old colleague. [711] [712] [713] |
| 2022-12-10 | W., David | 40 | Dresden | Sachsen | A man from Heidenau shot and killed his 62-year-old mother in Prohlis after she called police saying her son was threatening to harm her and others. He then fetched the nine-year-old child of an acquaintance and unsuccessfully tried gain entry to a local radio station, shooting the door 10 times, after which he entered the Altstadt-Galerie mall where he took a 38-year old drug store manager at gunpoint and hid away with his two hostages in her office. The situation was resolved within an hour when a SEK sniper shot him, leading to his death at a hospital the same morning. The deceased had been recorded for mental illness, having been most recently institutionalised on 14 October and released after a few weeks for claiming that he was being stalked by "satanist disciples". A man who was briefly taken hostage at the studio similarly overheard the kidnapper saying he needed to get on live air to "warn people about the satanists". [714] [715] [716] |
2023
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-01-03 | Bah, Mamadou "Johnson" | 38 | Braunschweig | Niedersachsen | On 1 January, police were called to a bar where an assault with pepper spray occurred during an argument between four men. Three of those involved along with wintesses identified a Guinean patron as the offender. During questioning, the man became aggressive and insulted and spat at officers due to which he was restrained and brought to the police station. There he tried to punch two officers, who evaded the attack and pinned him to a wall before letting him fall to the ground. He was semi-conscious when he was put in a holding cell, where a doctor found the man unresponsive when she came for a blood sample. He was brought to a hospital where he died two days later from cardiac arrest. Alcohol and cocaine was found in his blood. Surveillance and phone footage later proved that the arrested man was actually the victim of the initial assault. [717] [718] [719] |
| 2023-01-12 | B., Robert | 46 | Mosbach | Baden-Württemberg | A knife-wielding man from Karlsruhe with a record for domestic violence was reported walking towards the residence of his ex-partner. He attacked responding police, who used tear gas to no effect before shooting him. [720] [721] [722] |
| 2023-03-07 | Meinicke, Marcus | 34 | Senftenberg | Brandenburg | A woman called police about loud noise coming from her neighbour's flat. Two police officers forced the door open after receiving no response to knocking, finding the tenant damaging furniture and walls with an axe. He then charged at the officers and was fatally shot. Although police initially reported that two shots were fired, at least eleven bullet holes were counted at the scene. The deceased's family twice filed a complaint to the state to order an investigation and trial for manslaughter, but they were dismissed in January and April 2024. [723] [724] |
| 2023-03-17 | N.N. | 32 | Jarmen | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | Three police officers were sent to serve an arrest warrant for a man with known mental issues. On their arrival at his residence, the man was at first cooperative before he attacked with a 60 cm shortsword, heavily injuring the arm of a 47-year old officer, who fired once and killed the suspect. [725] [726] |
| 2023-04-11 | Novacov, Vitali | 45 | Königs Wusterhausen | Brandenburg | A Moldovan-born Bulgarian man was rampaging in front of his apartment building in Niederlehme during a mental health emergency. Police incapacitated him with pepper spray and fixated him, after which he lost consciousness and died at a hospital in Berlin despite being reanimated. His cause of death was brain damage caused by continued oxygen deprivation. Mud was found in the deceased's mouth and lungs, with it being reported that the officers pressed his face into the ground for a prolonged amount of time and also misrepresented first aid, having falsely claimed to have removed the handcuffs when the man collapsed. One of the two civilian residents of the apartment building who had aided the officers in restraining the deceased had also reportedly punched him in the face until he bled, but was never charged. Local activists blamed anti-Romani sentiment for the killing, although it was never definitively proven that the deceased was a Rom, and protested the death. [727] [728] [729] |
| 2023-06-06 | N.N. | 35 | Ingolstadt | Bayern | A police patrol encountered a naked man near a railway, who ran away after spotting the officers. He eventually stopped at a bridge and threatened to kill himself by jumping, leading to a five-hour stand-off during which SEK was called in to help negotiate and an attempt at arrest failed despite the use of pepper spray. The man then fled again into some nearby woods and during the search, the man, holding a large branch, reportedly charged at a SEK officer after hiding in a bush. He was subsequently shot once in the chest and died at a hospital. It was later found that the deceased was a Czech national with a lengthy criminal record for burglary and drug-related crime. [730] [731] |
| 2023-07-11 | Oswald, Danny | 39 | Berlin | Berlin | An intoxicated man was reported in Friedrichshain for rampaging in a store, snatching a bag from a witness and throwing it in the Spree and breaking into a construction container. Two officers fixated him to the ground and handcuffed him, but when he complained of breathing difficulties, the restraints were removed and officers applied first aid while calling an ambulance. The man lost consciousness at the scene and despite being reanimated by a medical attendant, he was pronounced dead at the hospital. The deceased's mother contradicts reports that her son admitted to being under the influence of heroin and ecstasy, instead claiming he was drunk and only argued with passerby, also claiming her son suffered from a partial spinal fusion and should not have been fixated. No one was charged. [732] [733] |
| 2023-08-18 | D., Rainer | 56 | Duisburg | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A mentally ill man was supposed to be taken from his apartment in Neuenkamp into psychiatric treatment, but heavily resisted against the paramedics. When police were called to aid the situation, they were attacked by the man in the stairwell. After taser usage failed due to malfunction, the attacker was shot three times, dying at the scene despite immediate resuscitation attempts. [734] [735] |
| 2023-10-11 | N.N. | 30 | Delbrück | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called about a missing person case, a psychologically unstable man who had previously voiced suicidal intention. A 27-year old police officer eventually found the man and upon calling out to him, the man pulled out a knife and approached the officer, who then shot him four times, fatally hitting him in the head. [736] [737] |
| 2023-11-05 | N.N. | 41 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Croatian national under the influence of cocaine was rampaging inside an apartment building in Altstadt after being denied service by a prostitute he hired due to lacking cash and instead attempting to pay her in recently invalidated kuna. He was shot with a taser by SEK. A paramedic sedated the man during the ambulance ride, after which he lost consciousness and died at a hospital. [738] [739] |
| 2023-11-20 | N.N. | 25 | Delmenhorst | Niedersachsen | A resident called police after seeing a man damaging a car with an axe in a nearby parking lot. The man then tried to attack the responding officers and was shot once by a 27-year old officer as a result, dying of his injuries at a hospital six days later. It was found that the attacker had injured a 32-year-old man in the same apartment building with the same weapon during an argument just minutes before. [740] [741] |
| 2023-12-01 | N.N. | 37 | Bad Schwalbach | Hessen | A woman called police to report her husband for domestic violence. During the response, an officer shot the unarmed man in the leg, leading to his death at a hospital the next day. No details have been given as to why the firearm was used. [742] [743] |
| 2023-12-07 | N.N. | 36 | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man from Euskirchen unsuccessfully tried to carjack a 28-year old woman at knifepoint in Bickendorf. He then fled and entered a taxi, threatening the driver to start the car, but the cabby refused to do and instead stepped out. As the man climbed into the driver's seat, he was confronted by two police officers alerted by the first victim. After ignoring an order to put down the knife, an officer shot him once in the chest and while on the ground, the man cut his own throat open. He was brought to a hospital where he died shortly after. An autopsy showed that both the gunshot and the knife wound were fatal. [744] [745] [746] |
| 2023-12-23 | Özkan, Ertekin | 49 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | A Turkish man with suspected mental issues called police to report that he had committed a crime, saying that he had cut himself with a knife and falsely claiming that there was a dead body in his flat in Schönau. Three police officers were sent to investigate and encountered the man, shirtless, bloodied, and holding a knife, in front of the apartment building. Phone video showed police squad cars cordoning off the scene to numerous bystanders as the officers repeatedly ordered the man to put down the weapon and when he began walking towards police, the man was shot four times in the torso. He was then handcuffed before first aid was applied. The man's 18-year-old daughter later alleged that police had prevented close relatives who wanted to talk her father down from nearing the scene. The death was heavily criticized and reported on in Turkey, and protests demanded an investigation of the officers involved. [747] [748] [749] |
2024
| Date (YYYY-MM-TT) | Name | Age | Place | State | Summary of events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-01-06 | Barry, Ibrahima | 26 | Mülheim | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A Guinean man was causing a disturbance in his room in a refugee accommodation, reportedly because he was about to face deportation for aggressive behaviour and due to doubts about his background. Police fired two taser shots at him, but as this did not seem to incapacitate him, the officers physically wrestled him to the ground, after which he lost consciousness. Despite being reanimated in an ambulance, he later died at a hospital. An autopsy found that he had consumed cocaine shortly before his death and also suffered from COPD and right-sided heart failure. [750] [751] |
| 2024-01-30 | N.N. | 40 | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | A mentally ill man with dual Spanish/Argentinian citizenship stabbed two women near the riverside in Sachsenhausen, injuring both in the face and neck. He was shot at least four times and died at the scene, with a ricocheting bullet also injuring an uninvolved 21-year-old man. [752] [753] |
| 2024-03-30 | Touray, Lamin | 46 | Nienburg | Lower Saxony | A Gambian man threatened his girlfriend with a knife, who then called the emergency line, requesting medical help for an immediate psychiatric issue. Police were sent in instead and while the officers attempted to calm the man, he stabbed a police dog and then attacked a female police officer. He was initially shot twice before another six shots were fired, with a passing bullet injuring an officer. The officer was airlifted to a hospital after police shot the man dead. Two days earlier, the man had injured three police officers with a knife after he was booked for driving without a licence in Harburg, reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar" during the attack. An arrest warrant from the prosecutor's office had been denied by the district court because he didn't have a prior criminal record. [754] [755] |
| 2024-04-03 | N.N. | 52 | Dortmund | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A homeless man was seen attacking another vagrant with a 2.5 meter metal bar before he began hitting the entrance door to the St. Reinold's Church. Arriving police used multiple taser shots on him, to no effect. The man then attacked an officer, and as they were struggling for the weapon, another fired a single shot that struck the attacker, who died at a hospital. The incident was captured on video by bystanders. [756] |
| 2024-04-18 | Zimmermann, Ronny | 39 | Ginsheim-Gustavsburg | Hessen | A squad car was responding to a traffic accident in which a 61-year-old cyclist was dragged under the wheels of a construction truck; she was air-lifted to a hospital and died the next day. While driving there, the police vehicle swerved to avoid a collision with a car that was entering the street, but instead struck a man driving a scooter, who died from his injuries at the scene. The police car continued to speed over the sidewalk and broke through a fence before crashing into a wall. The driver of the police car, as well as the 25-year-old woman who drove the other car involved, are being investigated by the state. [757] [758] |
| 2024-04-23 | N.N. | 31 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | A man from Saarbrücken who had been barred from entering the library of the University of Mannheim for harassment and slapping a librarian was spotted putting up stickers for his YouTube channel. After an employee told him to stop, the man threatened him with a machete, after which he entered an active lecture hall to put up more stickers. Students and staff intervened, during which a struggle ensued. After police was called, an officer confronted the man and ordered him to drop the weapon. He was shot after taking a step towards the officer and died at a hospital. [759] [760] |
| 2024-04-30 | N.N. | 38 | Landstuhl | Rheinland-Pfalz | A man was rampaging in his apartment and cutting himself with a knife. When police were called, they were attacked by the man, who was shot with a taser. He lost consciousness afterwards and died at a hospital a day later. [761] |
| 2024-05-15 | C., Gwen | 23 | Mauloff | Hessen | 23-year-old federal police officer Lukas F. shot his girlfriend during an argument. He was arrested the same evening and charged with manslaughter. [762] [763] |
| 2024-06-13 | K., Dirk | 51 | Hamburg | Hamburg | A man set his 81-year-old father on fire while he was sleeping in their apartment in Rahlstedt. Neighbours called police after hearing the father shouting for help in the staircase and when officers arrived, they were shot at by the suspect standing on the balcony. SEK engaged him in a shootout, during which the man was shot, dying at a hospital during the night. The father was treated at the scene and survived with critical burn wounds after emergency surgery. It was reported that the man, who had been living with his father since his 2023 break-up with his girlfriend, had suffered a mental health crisis in the hours before, having run naked through the street before his father calmed him down. [764] [765] [766] [767] |
| 2024-06-14 | N.N. | 27 | Wolmirstedt | Sachsen-Anhalt | An Afghan asylum seeker trespassed on a property that was holding a party for the start of the 2024 UEFA Championship and wounded three people, aged 50, 75, and 53, with a sharp object, leaving the former two with heavy injuries. He fled the scene and ran into a police patrol, whom he also attacked. Two officers each fired one shot at the man, who died at a hospital the next morning. It was found that the deceased had murdered a 23-year-old fellow Afghan with the same weapon shortly before the attacks. Investigators stated that he then aimlessly wandered the area and had threatened passing cars and another group in an allotment shortly before targeting the party at random. [768] [769] [770] [771] |
| 2024-06-30 | Z., Mohammad | 34 | Lauf | Bayern | An Iranian man approached a parked federal police van with three officers inside and repeatedly pulled at the locked door while hitting the vehicle. The officers exited and pepper sprayed him after he insulted them, at which point he pulled out a knife and attacked. A policewoman fired a warning shot before shooting the man in the stomach. The attacker died on the scene despite immediate first aid. He was a tolerated refugee and reportedly had a prior criminal record for resisting arrest and possessing narcotics. Based on interviews with his social workers, investigators dismissed religious extremism as a motive and instead speculate that he had been depressed due to his failure to obtain access to pre-med studies on account of his denied asylum status and drug addiction since his immigration to Germany, and that the attack was a suicide by cop, possibly inspired by the Mannheim stabbing a month earlier, where the perpetrator was shot by police, albeit non-fatally. [772] [773] [774] [775] |
| 2024-07-23 | N.N. | 5 | Kassel | Hessen | A police car with its siren on was driving through Nord-Holland when it accidentally struck a boy crossing the street. The child had pulled away from his mother and died of his injuries at the scene. [776] [777] |
| 2024-07-31 | N.N. | 39 | Oberkirch | Baden-Württemberg | Police were alerted by a physician who said one of his patients had called him and threatened to kill himself. Officers arrived at the man's apartment, where they found him bleeding from a self-inflicted injury and upon approaching the man to provide first aid, he threw a knife at them and tried to lunge at police with another knife. He was shot at least once and died at the scene despite immediate resuscitation attempts. The man had a prior criminal record for violent crimes and drug possession. [778] [779] [780] |
| 2024-08-19 | H., Christine | 31 | München | Bayern | A woman who had stabbed and injured a man during an argument with her parents and a family friend in Ludwigsvorstadt was found shortly after in a supermarket in Sendling by four police officers after a female passerby reported the assault. The woman threatened them with a knife and after pepper spray failed to incapacitate her, both officers opened fire, shooting her four times. She died at the scene. The deceased had multiple criminal charges for assault and drug crime, as well as a psychiatric history, having been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and involuntarily committed three times on grounds of "posing danger to herself and others" in the past. The same day, the deceased had sent a message to a friend stating that "I think today there will be dead" and "someone should pray we'll survive". [781] [782] [783] [784] [785] |
| 2024-08-27 | M., Nils | 26 | Moers | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A man was reported for insulting and attacking passerby on a street in Repelen by punching and kicking at them. When police arrived, the man pulled out two large knives and began walking towards them. Officers fired seven shots after the man ignored repeated orders to drop the weapons, hitting him twice in the torso, dying at the scene despite immediate first aid. The man was mentally ill, having been twice confined to a mental institution in the last two years, with a neighbor attesting that he had been regularly "throwing fits" in the past two weeks. [786] [787] [788] |
| 2024-08-28 | N.N. | 33 | Recklinghausen | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Police were called due to a man rampaging at his mother's apartment in Suderwich after injuring his father with a knife in a family argument. The family had reportedly calmed their son down, but he became incensed upon seeing police and charged at them. Two officers fired five shots him, with three striking the man, including one in the neck that proved fatal. Testimony by the parents and a medical examination showed that the deceased had attempted suicide before police arrival. [789] [790] [791] [792] |
| 2024-08-31 | N.N. | 46 | Berlin | Berlin | A man was spotted by residents of a camping trailer site exiting the women's bathroom and heading for the men's bathroom. Upon being confronted, the man pulled out a revolver and argued while using unspecified racial insults. A 49-year old man used a timber log to chase the attacker off, following him as he retreated to his flat in Nikolassee. SEK stormed his flat after obtaining a warrant, being met with immediate gunfire from the attacker. Officers fired 19 shots with at least 12 hitting and killing the man. The weapon was identified as a compressed air pistol. The deceased was under extended psychiatric home care at the time of the shooting, having been denied access to firearms when asked by his caretaker. Anti-Romani racism is also considered a factor, as the trailer park is locally known to be largely populated by Sinti and Roma. [793] [794] [795] |
| 2024-09-04 | N.N. | 42 | Bonn | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Following an argument, a man stabbed and injured a 43-year old woman and a 32-year old man under a bridge used as a homeless encampment in Nordstadt. The suspect was located near a Burger King restaurant by police and was shot twice in the torso during his arrest after continuing to move, dying at a hospital after emergency surgery. [796] [797] [798] |
| 2024-09-05 | Ibrahimović, Emrah | 18 | München | Bayern | 2024 Munich shooting: A man was seen walking around the Israeli general consulate and the National Socialism Documentation Centre, armed with a bayonted repeating rifle. A shootout ensued when he opened fire on a police car and was shot a minimum of ten times by five police officers. Because the shooting occurred on the day that commemorates the 1972 Munich massacre and the deceased, an Austrian national of Bosnian descent, was a known Islamist who symphathized for Jabhat al-Nusra, investigators consider the incident an attempted terror attack; the consulate had been closed and empty due to a remembrance taking place for the anniversary. The attacker had been forbidden from owning weapons, but he had circumvented the order by buying the gun, a Swiss Karabiner 31, from an antique dealer the day of the shooting. [799] [800] [801] [802] [803] [804] [805] |
| 2024-10-11 | B., Serhat | 32 | Bochum | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A schizophrenic man was rampaging in his apartment in Bochum-Linden and throwing items out of his window. Alerted police entered the apartment's floor, where the man assaulted them with a hammer. Officers stopped the attack by pulling out their sidearms and spoke to the man for several minutes, at which point he returned to his flat and began barricading the door. SEK was called to the scene due to concerns that there may be more weapons inside and during the following raid, the man was shot two times after attacking officers. [806] [807] [808] |
| 2024-10-21 | N.N. | 35 | Gangelt | Nordrhein-Westfalen | A woman who had escaped from a psychatric hospital was loudly shouting outside the residential area where she lived. SEK killed the woman with a single gunshot after she threatened officers with a pair of scissors and an unspecified sharp instrument, either a knife or a glass shard. [31] [809] [810] |
| 2024-10-24 | N.N. | 20 | Schwalmstadt | Hessen | A car drove up to a police station and when four officers approached the vehicle, the driver stepped out and aimed a gun at police, who immediately fired on the woman, hitting her twice. The woman died despite immediate first aid in an ambulance. She had a prior criminal history for DUI, hit-and-run, check fraud and violations to car insurance agreements. Investigators say that the woman had been arrested at the same station the prior night for drunk driving and let go after a blood sample was taken. The gun she used was found to be an airsoft replica. [811] [812] |
| 2024-11-02 | O., Thomas | 51 | Nürnberg | Bayern | Police responded to a call about an escalating domestic argument at an apartment in Schoppershof. Upon arrival, officers found a man threatening his 41-year-old girlfriend with a knife. He was shot by two police officers after he did not listen to demands to put down the weapon. [813] [814] |
| 2024-11-05 | N.N. | 51 | Bühlertann | Baden-Württemberg | Police were called about a man throwing items out of his window. He assaulted arriving officers, lightly injuring one, and was in-turn beaten with batons, pepper sprayed, and fixated to the ground. The man was administered a sedative and collapsed some time later, dying at a hospital. [815] |
| 2024-11-23 | N.N. | 34 | Kamp-Lintfort | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Following a call about a noise complaint, a man wielding a keyring attacked and lightly injured the three responding officers in the stairwell of an apartment building. A 24-year-old officer fell down the stairs during the scuffle and then fired three shots on the attacker. Two struck the man who died at a hospital the next day. [816] [817] |
| 2024-12-09 | N.N. | 35 | Grassau | Bayern | A man called police to tell them that he was holding his mother hostage at their home in Mietenkam. After police knocked on the front door, the man charged at the officers with a knife and was shot once in the torso, dying at the scene. The man had a prior criminal record for violent offenses. [818] |
