Policeman shot dead during eviction

A 35-year-old unemployed man shot dead one policeman and injured another in the small town of Schafhausen in Emmental on Tuesday morning, after they tried to evict him.

Published: 24 May 2011 13:09 CEST

According to the police report, two police officers rang the doorbell of a two-storey house shortly after 8am. When the officers tried to enter the house by force, a man named as 35-year-old Roger F. opened fire from inside.

One officer was shot in the stomach and died immediately, despite attempts to revive him.

The other officer was shot in the arm and was able to radio a passing police patrol, who managed to arrest Roger F.

He is thought to be an unemployed man who suffered from alcohol-related problems. Neighbours told the 20 Minuten newspaper he was rarely seen outside.

bk/The Local

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Two victims suffered serious wounds, police said. The attacker was also in hospital being treated for injuries that investigators said were self-inflicted.

The man was “believed to be of foreign origin” and was aged about 40, police said in a statement which added that he was thought to have acted alone.

All of the injured remained hospitalised late Wednesday.

Armed with “sharpened or pointed” metal weapons, the man first lashed out at a passer-by at the railway station in the town of 12,000 people in the Aargau canton, about 60 kilometres (38 miles) west of Zurich, police said.

He then wounded several people seemingly at random before entering a house, police added.

Among those attacked were two teachers from the Zofingen cantonal school, the institution’s director, Patrick Strossler, told 20minuten.ch news website.

The Aargauer Zeitung newspaper quoted one man as saying his pregnant wife had been among those attacked. She was cut in the face but her life was not threatened.

After two hours of negotiations with a specialised team, the man was arrested in the house, police said. The suspect had injured himself and was taken to hospital, said Bernhard Graser, a police spokesman.

Graser told the Zofinger Tagblatt newspaper that the attacker’s injuries were self-inflicted.

Police have called for witnesses to share video or photos that may be useful for their investigation.

Images shown by Aargauer Zeitung showed a large deployment of police and emergency vehicles. The security forces had assault rifles and bullet-proof vests.

A police helicopter landed on a nearby sports field, causing the local youth football team to cut short a training session, the newspaper said.