German police officers shot people 60 times last year, mostly justified as self-defence, but also to “prevent crime”. The fatal shots are often fired at people who are in exceptional situations or who are affected by discrimination.
Police officers in Germany shot eleven people and injured 30 others last year. In total, they used firearms against people in 60 cases, mostly in self-defence or in defence against a “danger to life and limb”. In 14 cases, police shots were fired to “prevent crimes” or similar offences. In addition, there were 48 warning shots, 94 cases classified as “unintentional firing” and seven completed or attempted suicides with a police weapon.
The figures come from statistics compiled by the Police Academy (DHPol) in Münster for the year 2022. The reports, which are produced annually, are not published, but are released upon request by journalists. Responsible for this is the Conference of Ministers of the Interior, which commissioned the DHPol in 1984 to collect cases from the federal and state governments.
The magazine “Bürgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP” also keeps statistics on deaths by police shootings. In contrast to the scarce reports of the police, circumstances of the operations are reconstructed. However, the information on this mostly comes from the local press and thus from police press releases.
Among the victims of police gunfire last year was 16-year-old Mohammed Lamine Dramé. Twelve officers shot the youth, who was from Senegal, in the courtyard of a facility for unaccompanied minor refugees in Dortmund after they had first mauled him with pepper spray and a Taser. The police had been called by a caretaker because Dramé had announced his suicide. At the end of the operation, an officer shot six times from a submachine gun. Severely wounded by four hits to the stomach, jaw, arm and shoulder, the teenager died in hospital.
Also among the 2022 shot by police is an unknown 36-year-old who allegedly stole two bottles of beer and potatoes from a supermarket in Leipzig and later threatened staff with a knife – presumably under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A police “unit for life-threatening situations” shot the man in his own flat shortly afterwards.
The homeless Jouzef Berditchevski was also shot in his flat in Cologne, in this case by plainclothes officers. They had accompanied a bailiff to enforce eviction against the 48-year-old. The man, who was known in Cologne as a musician, allegedly had a knife in his hand before the fatal shot.
The 23-year-old Amin F. also allegedly grabbed a knife during a police operation in a hotel in Frankfurt’s railway station district. A special task force had broken down the door to the room occupied by the man and set a dog on him. According to the police, the hotel guest injured the animal and made stabbing movements towards the officers. A police officer then shot the upper half of the man’s body six times, including in the head.
From CILIP’s reports, patterns can be inferred, such as that all of the 2022 killed were male. Also all of them were armed themselves, either with stabbing or cutting weapons and in one case also a pistol. The list indicates that at least five of the victims in the past year were in an exceptional mental situation.
These are the most controversial cases of police shootings, because often – as in the case of Mohammed Lamine Dramé in Dortmund, for example – such a situation is already communicated to the command when the emergency call is made. “The fact that almost half of the people shot by the police were in psychological crises and emergency situations shows once again that the police are not at all capable of solving these problems,” said social scientist Vanessa Thompson to “nd”. That is why it is important to fight for the development of alternative infrastructures. “Especially in activist networks, it is often not even known how to react supportively in mental health crises.”
Police scientist Thomas Feltes criticises the DHPol in principle. The breakdown of the cases is “absolutely insufficient”. There is no information on the spatial distribution and which special units were deployed, he said. The DHPol should also list other deaths in police custody or deaths due to excessive police violence that can be attributed to the police. The police academy’s statistics for 2022 are not complete anyway. If the prosecution investigation into the cause of death has not been completed, the deaths are counted under the heading “cases not yet classified (consequences)”. For the last year, there are two entries there.
According to “Bürgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP”, at least 324 people have been shot by the police since reunification in 1989. After an increase from 2015, the numbers have been declining again since 2021. This year, at least four people were shot dead by the police.
Another seven people have died after using a Taser since 2018, according to CILIP statistics. The victims of these weapons die of cardiac or circulatory arrest, organ failure or suffocation from vomit. Almost all tasers were used by police inside buildings, and in all cases the circumstances suggest an exceptional mental situation or drug use.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Jouzef Berditchevski who shot in his flat in Cologne (Aktionsbündnis Gegen Wohnungsnot und Stadtzerstörung in Köln)
