Dortmund: shot 16-year-old – police are now also evaluating older fatal operations

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Mourning for the 16-year-old in Dortmund: did he approach the officials with a knife?

Photo: Gregor Bauernfeind / dpa

The police in North Rhine-Westphalia are examining operations from the past five years after the fatal shots at a 16-year-old refugee in Dortmund.

This emerges from a report by the Ministry of the Interior to the state parliament.

Specifically, it is about cases in North Rhine-Westphalia in which officials shot and fatal operations after coercive measures.

The competent police training authority (LAFP) should draw conclusions as to whether the training and further education of officers needs to be changed.

Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) had already announced measures after the incident in Dortmund.

The new report to the internal committee speaks of "supplementary information" for police officers on how to deal with mentally ill people and those at risk of suicide.

There have been more than 10,000 suicide attempts this year.

language difficulties

During a police operation in Dortmund in August, an officer shot the teenager with his submachine gun.

The police had been called to the inner courtyard of a youth welfare facility because the youth wanted to kill himself with a knife.

It is currently being determined whether he then approached the officers with the knife.

In the case of Dortmund, there were language difficulties with the youth from Senegal.

Since there is no readiness for interpreters, according to the Ministry of the Interior, all police authorities were asked to deposit a list with the cell phone numbers and the language skills of the employees at the control center.

This is done on a voluntary basis.

According to the ministry, after it became known that the pepper spray used in Dortmund had already expired, all police authorities were once again reminded of their obligation to take an annual inventory.

apr/dpa