In all of 2016, german police officers shot 11 people to death. Additionally, guns have been used 28 times to merely hurt and stop other people. Overall, guns have been drawn 52 times during the whole year. All cases where deemed self-defense.
Google translated article by Spiegel Online:
Google translated article by Spiegel Online:
Police officers shot eleven people in Germany last year. According to a survey conducted by the German College of Police in Münster, officials with their service gun also injured 28 people.
According to statistics, the deaths are all due to self-defense or emergency aid, ie cases in which police officers had to help themselves or other people in a life-threatening situation. In total, policemen reported the shooting gun against humans in 52 cases.
Higher figures than last year
The figures are somewhat higher than in previous years. In 2015 ten people died, 22 were injured, 2014 there were seven dead and 30 injured, 2013 eight deaths and 20 injured.
In Sachsen-Anhalt, the police had shot a 28-year-old, who fired after a family quarrel on Tuesday . When special forces were deployed during the G20 riots in Hamburg, the shotgun use was released for self-sufficiency, as a SEK leader said .
There are significantly more cases in the US. According to a survey of the Washington Post , policemen in the US last year killed 963 people. Even if the number of inhabitants is taken into account - about 324 million in the US, about 81 million in Germany - then the number of deadly police in the US is more than 20 times as high as in Germany.
The Bochum criminologist Thomas Feltes said that there was no "shooting-gun" police in Germany. "As before, most police officers use their service weapon exclusively on the shooting range for a lifetime."
At the same time, the researcher emphasized that the victims were mentally ill in most fatal shots. "Here we actually have an increase and the urgent need for more training for the police." Many officials are not trained in dealing with mentally disturbed persons.