Frankfurt, Cologne, Dortmund: Within a week, three people in Germany were killed in police operations after knife attacks. The accumulation raises a number of questions. We have answered the most important ones.
From the point of view of the German police union, the accumulation of the three cases is “coincidence” – however, a fundamental problem can be identified, union boss Rainer Wendt told the Tagesspiegel. “In the past there have been a high number of knife attacks, 20,000 last year alone. This is also because knives are more readily available than other weapons.” In Berlin alone, 33 people died in almost 2,800 knife attacks in 2021.
Residents, demonstrators and activists in Dortmund and other cities accused the police of racism and police violence after the deaths. NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU), on the other hand, rules out a structural police problem.
Like Wendt, Reul points out that the increase could be related to the large number of attacks involving knives. “And experts know that knives are the most dangerous thing of all,” Reul said on Deutschlandfunk on Friday. “It’s not just any object, it’s now a life-threatening instrument. Unfortunately, a lot of people carry that around with them almost every day now.”
Even independently of knife attacks, the number of attacks on officials is at a high level. “Last year alone there were over 40,000 attacks against police forces,” Wendt had already told the “Welt”. “What doesn’t increase are shots by police officers at people – they are consistently at a low level.”
Last year there were 30 shots by police officers at civilians in North Rhine-Westphalia, three were killed, according to Wendt. “But that’s a tiny fraction of the 2,000 shots fired by the police in North Rhine-Westphalia. The bulk of firearm use is directed against things.”
The police law states: “Firearms may only be used against persons to ward off an imminent danger to life or limb.”
The escalation chain to defend against attacks begins with simple physical violence. Only then would pepper spray and tasers be used, Wendt told the Tagesspiegel. “The means used must be proportionate.” Depending on the dangerous situation, however, the police officers could also skip several steps in the chain and shoot immediately.
In a dangerous situation, the police officers fire so-called “German balls” at the largest projection surface, which is the torso of humans. Because it is very difficult to hit someone in the movement, for example in the leg. “It’s shot until the desired effect is achieved,” said Wendt.
There could be no question of “self-defense” in the police operations, but of “defense against danger,” said Wendt. In Frankfurt, Cologne and Dortmund, the officials shot so as not to endanger themselves and others.
Critics of the operations doubt that firing the guns was really necessary. “Why was a submachine gun used there? That’s incomprehensible at all,” said Bochum criminologist Thomas Feltes. From his point of view, such a weapon is intended for killing sprees, not for use against young people with mental health problems.
Wendt does not understand the debate as to whether the use of the submachine gun in Dortmund was proportionate. “It doesn’t matter whether a pistol or a submachine gun is used. Both are permitted weapons, and have been for decades.” NRW Interior Minister Reul even goes one step further: “The submachine gun is not a solution, but the last resort for the police officer who was attacked.”
In Frankfurt, the police’s special task force (SEK) shot a 23-year-old homeless man in the head. Previously, he had wanted to force two prostitutes to use drugs in a hotel. Apparently he threatened her with a knife and the women were able to escape.
During the subsequent police operation, the man known to the police severely injured a police dog with a knife. Since he was carrying a firearm, the SEK officer aimed directly at the head. Since the first means used, according to police union boss Wendt, must always be the “mildest”, the police officers apparently classified the situation as very dangerous.
In Cologne, a bailiff was there to evict a 48-year-old police officer who was known to the police, as the man is said to have previously threatened violence. When he then attacked the police officers on site with a knife, the officers are said to have used pepper spray and announced the use of firearms. Neither is said to have had any effect, so a police officer shot the man. He died in his apartment.
In Dortmund, caregivers of a 16-year-old called the police because he wanted to kill himself, said NRW Interior Minister Reul on Thursday. First, plainclothes police tried to calm the young people down. Because that didn’t work, they used pepper spray. Only then did the police use the taser. A total of eleven police officers are said to have been on site.
The fact that even the taser could not stop him was due to the fact that the police officer only hit the young person with an arrow. “And it takes two arrows to complete the circuit,” Wendt explained. The teenager then ran towards the police officer. Five out of six shots from a submachine gun hit him.
For reasons of neutrality, neighboring police stations are investigating in Dortmund and Cologne. In the Dortmund case, the Recklinghausen police and in the Cologne case, the Bonn police. In the Frankfurt case, the Hessian State Criminal Police Office has started the investigation.
The police officers who fired the fatal shots are being investigated. The officials would be treated as suspects – just like any other citizen in such a case, said NRW Interior Minister Reul for the cases in Cologne and Dortmund. Usually the police officers would be released from duty for the time of the investigation, Wendt told the Tagesspiegel.
In order to avoid such crimes in the future, mentally ill people who are at risk of committing such crimes must be identified at an early stage, Reul said on Deutschlandfunk. For this purpose, an exchange of information between the police and those people who care for the mentally ill must take place.
As a consequence, the Greens are calling for the appointment of a federal police commissioner before the end of this year. “Independent police officers create transparency and strengthen the population’s trust in the police,” said the Greens chairman in the Bundestag’s interior committee, Marcel Emmerich, the “Spiegel”.
From the point of view of the police union, a short-term consequence of the three police operations could be that there will soon be tasers in patrol cars across the board, said union boss Wendt. There are surveys that attacks do not occur in 70 percent of cases when the use of a taser is threatened. For him it is clear: “Of course we don’t want to get used to it.”
