Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – After the fifth fatal police operation this year in North Rhine-Westphalia, the opposition SPD attacked North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU). The impression is created “that something must get out of hand in their area of ??responsibility,” said SPD MP Christina Kampmann on Thursday in the state parliament’s interior committee. “The number of fatal police operations should be of great concern to all of us. It is an accumulation that we do not want to simply accept.”
She would like to know how the Minister of the Interior intends to “get this under control again”. Reul defended himself against the allegations and spoke of a “cheap number”. “It’s not that we have a particularly exceptional situation.” The number of fatal police operations corresponds to that in 2017 and 2019, according to a ministry official.
The CDU spoke of the “populism” of the SPD. The police are dealing with increasing aggressiveness. Criticism also came from the opposition FDP, for which MP Marc Lürbke called the accusation “underground”. “We shouldn’t do opposition work like this,” he said.
A senior public prosecutor had previously stated that according to the initial status of the investigations during the police operation in Zülpich, the attacker put a policewoman in a headlock and held a knife to her neck. In this situation, her colleague fired the fatal shot.
The mother of the 31-year-old attacker had previously called the police because he had rioted and destroyed car windows. Several speeches by the 31-year-old and the use of pepper spray were unsuccessful during the operation on Monday.
