After the deadly police shots from a submachine gun at a 16-year-old in Dortmund, the shooter is still being investigated on suspicion of bodily harm resulting in death. However, it is being examined whether the investigation will be expanded to include the suspicion of manslaughter.
According to a report by the Ministry of the Interior to the state parliament, which is available to the German Press Agency, investigations are also being carried out into four other officers who “used weapons or resources against the young person” during the controversial operation.
The new investigation into assault at the agency involves a police officer who used pepper spray and a police officer and police officer who fired Tasers.
Also against the head of operations for inciting physical harm. He had ordered the use of pepper spray and tasers. What is also new is that twelve officers were involved in the operation, including four in civilian clothes. So far, eleven emergency services were assumed.
After the controversial police operation on August 8, investigations were initially started against the police officer with the submachine gun because of the initial suspicion of bodily harm resulting in death.
The police were called to the courtyard of a youth welfare facility in the north of Dortmund on the day that the 16-year-old held a 15 to 20 centimeter knife to his stomach. The operation initially ran as a suicide attempt.
The unaccompanied minor refugee from Senegal had come to Germany in April and only days before the deployment to Dortmund and is said not to have spoken German well. Finally, pepper spray and two tasers were used, one of which hit.
According to the current status, the 16-year-old ran towards the officers with the knife. The police officer fired his submachine gun six times. So far it has been said that five shots hit the youngster in the face, forearm, stomach and two times in the shoulder. According to the autopsy, he was hit four times. He died later in hospital.
As can be seen from the report to the state parliament, the officials addressed the young people from Senegal in German and Spanish. Apparently, they didn’t tell him to put the knife down, the report said.
As the paper goes on to say, both Taser shots had failed. The first didn’t hit the right target, the second had hit the youngster on the limb, among other things. Apparently only pain caused and no further reaction.
So far it has not been clarified how exactly the youth held the knife in his hand and whether and how he was still moving. This point is crucial to the question of whether the policeman saved his colleagues from a knife attack with the shots.
Several aspects of the mission caused criticism. It was about the fact that the police officers’ body cams were not switched on. The reason: The filming of “highly personal circumstances” in a suicide mission is not allowed.
And when the situation changed, according to the officials, the situation became so stressful that nobody thought about the bodycams. The fact that several shots were fired from a submachine gun at an apparently suicidal youth also caused consternation.
Since July 2018, two MP5s have been part of the equipment in every radio patrol car in North Rhine-Westphalia. Questions also raised that the 16-year-old had been in a psychiatric ward shortly before his death.
There were also allegations of police violence, with particular emphasis on the fact that the police shot a black youth. In Dortmund there were demonstrations of the left spectrum and the African community. According to the prosecutor, there was no evidence that skin color played a role in the operation.
Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) sees “a new situation” after the investigations have been expanded. But that also shows that the case is being looked at carefully, said Reul on Thursday.
