Enlarge image
Candles stand near the spot where a 16-year-old died in a police operation on August 8 (photo taken in August)
Photo: Bernd Thissen / dpa
Almost five weeks ago, 16-year-old Mouhamed D. died in a police operation in Dortmund's Nordstadt.
The incident, during which the Senegalese who fled to Germany was hit by four bullets from a submachine gun and later died in a Dortmund hospital, has been occupying the judiciary in North Rhine-Westphalia for weeks.
The tragedy was also a topic in various committees of the Düsseldorf state parliament.
On Wednesday, more specific information on the timing was given in the legal committee for the first time.
Accordingly, there was three minutes between the first contact by the police on site with the 16-year-old and the fatal shots at him.
The legal committee quoted from the police deployment log from the “control center of the police headquarters in Dortmund”.
According to this log, the supervisors dialed the emergency number at 4:25 p.m., and around 4:30 p.m. the first police vehicles arrived on site.
Seven minutes later, officers cleared "the courtyard."
At 4:42 p.m., police officers were able to "approach three to four meters to D. without being seen."
At 4:44 p.m., the "operational team" contacted D.
At 4.46 p.m. they were supposed to "advance", D. was sprayed with tear gas.
A minute later six shots were fired.
NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) had already expressed doubts about the police operation in the past few days.
From the findings of the investigation that the public prosecutor's office has so far communicated, "I get the impression that some things may not have gone smoothly in this operation," said Reul in Düsseldorf.
The investigating senior public prosecutor, Carsten Dombert, told SPIEGEL: "In my opinion, the operation did not go as planned and I have doubts that action was taken in a proportionate manner." According to Dombert, the means chosen were not the mildest.
The mentally ailing Mouhamed D. lived only a few days in a youth welfare facility on a church site in the north of Dortmund.
When he held a knife to his own stomach in the courtyard on August 8, caregivers from the youth welfare facility first tried to get in touch with him.
When that didn't work, they called the police for help because they suspected they were endangering themselves, and the operation was classified as a "suicide attempt".
The inner courtyard is an area sealed off from the outside by fences and walls.
Which in recent weeks has raised the question of why the situation was not kept static, waiting for a special task force better equipped to handle knives, for psychological help or an interpreter.
The head of operations decided differently, he saw "an immediate danger to life from self-harm," according to a ministry paper.
Sound document is further evaluated
D. is said to have been spoken to by the police in English and Spanish.
It is currently being determined whether he was even asked to put down the knife.
There are no video recordings of the operation itself, the police officers had not switched on their body cameras.
What is there is video from a local resident, but it doesn't start until after the shots are fired.
There is also a recording of the supervisor's emergency call.
The supervisor's mobile phone remained switched on "up to and including the shot was fired," as NRW Justice Minister Benjamin Limbach (Greens) explained.
This audio document is currently being evaluated by the Federal Criminal Police Office.
It is still unclear today, among other things, whether D., who got up after being sprayed with tear gas and is said to have moved towards the police officers, held the knife in the direction of the officers.
The spray that was used apparently expired in April 2022.
An expert opinion should now clarify to what extent the irritant gas was still effective.
After the use of pepper spray, two officers wanted to stop D. with so-called tasers.
One official didn't hit right.
The second officer hit D. with both projectiles from the Taser.
Whether this had a stopping effect on D. is still being investigated.
Five of the twelve officers who were on site at the time the shots were fired are currently being investigated.
The shooter, who is suspended from duty, is suspected of causing bodily harm while in office, resulting in death.
