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CRIME

Policeman shoots woman dead in Munich

A Munich policeman shot a 49-year-old woman on Thursday evening, after she reportedly threatened him with a knife. The woman died in hospital not long afterwards.

Published: 31 December 2010 13:03 CET
Policeman shoots woman dead in Munich
Photo: DPA

A police officer was called to an apartment block in the Großhadern district of Munich at close to 9 pm on Thursday evening. While the background details remain unclear, it appears a woman there threatened him with a knife.

According to the police report, the officer attempted to defend himself with pepper spray at first, but when the woman was not deterred, he shot her with his service weapon.

“He only fired one shot,” police spokeswoman Claudia Haas said. The woman was taken to hospital, where she died later of her injury.

The police intends to release more details on Friday afternoon. “I cannot answer any detail-related questions until then,” Haas said. The brief police statement said the police had been called because of a “threat situation.”

In Germany, a policeman who fires his weapon while on duty usually faces an obligatory criminal investigation. The officer is forced to surrender his weapon and be tested for gunshot residue.

On average, police fire shots while on duty once every week in Germany. Official statistics say that between 1998 and 2009, the police shot at people in 547 incidents, killing 87 and injuring 309.

The Local/bk

CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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