Seven people and the suspected perpetrator were killed in a rampage in Hamburg. He is said to have directed himself. Another eight people were injured, four of them seriously. Among the dead is an unborn child aged seven months who was hit in the womb. The mother survived.
The crime took place during a church service of the “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. The alleged perpetrator is a 35-year-old man. He is said to be a former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He is said to have lived in Hamburg since 2014 and to have been a sports marksman. The murder weapon was a semi-automatic pistol. The alleged perpetrator is said to have fired over 100 shots. I had allegedly been subject to an unannounced inspection by the weapons authority. This was preceded by an anonymous tip-off about alleged psychological problems. During the check, nothing was found except a single cartridge lying around. A tip-off portal was set up.
The Federal Chairman of the German Police Union (DPolG), Rainer Wendt, said: “The rampage makes it clear that there can be no hundred percent security, but it has been shown that the forces are professionally and resolutely on the spot when it comes to protecting people.” The fact that special forces of the riot police were quickly on the scene shows how important and necessary it is to invest in the performance of the security forces. “In this context, we as the German Police Union demand that one complete day a month be set aside exclusively for training police forces to deal with life-threatening situations. So far, this does not happen more often than once a year,” Wendt continued.
In Hamburg, forces of the “Unterstützungsstreife für erschwerte Einsatzlagen” (USE) were on the scene within a few minutes and intervened. The officers of the units have been deployed since October 2020 for operations with increased threat potential. In the current case, the forces happened to be in the vicinity. Special units were also deployed during a hostage situation in a pharmacy in Rhineland-Palatinate. This was ended without bloodsheets.Special units and their deployment possibilities are also a topic at the upcoming European Police Congress of Behörden Spiegel on 3rd and 4th May in Berlin.