In Dortmund, the police shot dead a 16-year-old late Monday afternoon. According to the police, the young person is said to have attacked emergency services with a knife, whereupon at least one officer used a service weapon. According to the current knowledge of the Dortmund public prosecutor’s office, several shots were fired. The teenager was seriously injured and died a little later during an emergency operation in the hospital, police said.
The incident happened around 4:20 p.m. on Holsteiner Strasse in the city center north. A resident dialed the emergency call because he saw the 16-year-old near a youth center with a knife, said the responsible Dortmund public prosecutor, Carsten Dombert, of the AFP news agency. The young man wanted to spend the night there.
Why the situation then escalated in such a way is completely unknown. “For reasons of neutrality, the police headquarters in Recklinghausen has taken over the investigation,” said the Dortmund police. Among other things, the officers involved should be questioned and the body of the dead man should be examined by forensic medicine.
“We understand that the operation on Holsteiner Strasse triggers many emotions,” the police wrote on Twitter and asked “to refrain from speculation before the investigation is complete (…).
Police officers in Germany rarely shoot people. The Federal Ministry of the Interior registered 15 such cases in 2020, most of them in self-defense or emergency aid situations. Nevertheless, several fatal shots from service weapons have recently caused a stir: on Tuesday last week, a homeless 23-year-old was fatally injured by a police officer’s shot during an operation in the station district of Frankfurt am Main. A day later, the 48-year-old tenant was shot by the police during the eviction of an apartment in Cologne.
Sources: Dortmund Police Headquarters, Federal Ministry of the Interior, DPA and AFP news agencies
