Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Police shoot ill man after hammer attack

Two German policemen could be charged with manslaughter after shooting dead a mentally ill man who attacked them with a hammer, a state prosecutor said on Wednesday.

Published: 2 August 2012 08:31 CEST
Police shoot ill man after hammer attack
Photo: DPA

The pair arrived at the 51-year-old man’s house in Lower Saxony to accompany a doctor and a local official when they went to see the man, who had become violent after stopping his medication.

When the police entered the isolated farmhouse the man shared with his mother, he charged at them with a hammer, allegedly hitting one officer on the head several times.

The other officer shot the victim three times, killing him. His mother was not home.

A post mortem will be conducted, while the Oldenburg state prosecutor is investigating whether the police officer who shot the man was acting in self-defence, a spokeswoman said that evening.

A reconstruction of the incident would, she said, help the prosecution decide.

DPA/The Local/jcw

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.

SHOW COMMENTS