Experienced specialists talked to the entrenched man for hours, trying to convince him to give up. Vain. The alleged perpetrator, who is said to have shot an employee of the Neumarkt district office in the Upper Palatinate during a routine weapons check, absolutely did not want to surrender. The emergency services then attacked in the middle of the night. They arrested the 60-year-old in Berngau with the help of explosives and shots.
“No more precise information can be given at the moment about the exact sequence of events,” said a spokeswoman for the Upper Palatinate Police Headquarters immediately afterwards. “The whole thing definitely didn’t go without resistance because the officers also had to shoot.” The shots slightly injured the alleged perpetrator in the leg; The German was subsequently given medical care.
The operation lasted a good twelve hours
Around 2:00 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, several witnesses called the police and emergency services to report the sounds of gunshots. A major operation by the Bavarian police began, which lasted late into the night.
First, the officers surrounded the building. They discovered the 45-year-old government employee lying lifeless on the floor in front of the white residential building with the ground-floor entrance door. He was already dead. “The suspect called the operations center by phone. In the following conversations he stated that he was in his apartment and in possession of firearms," said the spokeswoman. He also admitted to shooting - and announced that he would not give up without resistance.
When the emergency services carried out security measures inside the building in which the man was still holed up at the time, they discovered another body. It was the 45-year-old's 54-year-old colleague. “We assume that she died immediately as a result of the shooting,” said a police spokesman. The discovery situation speaks for this.
Routine checks for legal gun ownership
According to the information, the two victims wanted to carry out a routine check as part of legal gun ownership. This includes, among other things, whether the weapons are stored correctly. But instead of proving this, the 60-year-old is said to have opened fire on the two inspectors.
A special operations team then drove to Berngau with an armored vehicle, and a police helicopter was also deployed. Meanwhile, people in town should not leave their houses or at least avoid the cordoned off area around the suspect's house.
Police wanted a peaceful solution
The police continued to negotiate for hours and did not storm the apartment in the center of Berngau. The spokesman explained the operational tactics as follows: “We always try to bring about a peaceful solution, which basically takes place through communication. The alternative is also clear to everyone. But the goal is definitely to create a non-violent solution.”
But this time the plan didn't work. “Eventually an attack took place, using explosives,” said the police spokesman after the sudden entry into the apartment at around 2:20 a.m. “The 60-year-old suspected shooter was slightly injured by shots in the leg.” The man is now receiving medical care.
But the investigators from the Regensburg Criminal Investigation Department will soon question him in close consultation with the responsible public prosecutor's office in Nuremberg-Fürth. Also about his motive - because that was initially a complete mystery.
