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The two police officers are sitting at the end of September in the appeal process before the district court in Hagen
Photo: Alex Talash / dpa
More than two years ago, Nadina A. and Patricia B. drove their police van through a poorly lit commercial area in Gevelsberg - a small town in the southern Ruhr area.
Then they discovered two colleagues at the side of the road.
traffic control.
As shots rang out, the police officers drove on, leaving their colleagues in the hail of bullets.
The district court in Hagen has now sentenced the officers to four months' probation in the appeals process.
In the first instance, the district court in Schwelm had imposed a year's probation on each of them.
As a result, the officers would have lost their jobs.
After the appeal judgment, the consequences under service law are reserved for disciplinary proceedings.
Thus, the women can once again hope for a future in the police force.
The officers were accused of collective attempted dangerous bodily harm in office through omission.
Instead of intervening, they stopped a car and told the driver to drive away, the judge said in the first trial.
As police officers, they were legally required to act differently - i.e. not to flee, but to fire a warning shot from cover.
By fleeing, they left their colleagues in a life-threatening situation to their fate, "according to the motto: better them than me," prosecutor Jörn Kleimann said in his plea.
In the first trial, the officers asked for their understanding: “I expected to be hit myself at any moment.
I just thought, 'Please don't go in the back of my head,'" said one of the two through tears.
“Even when I was on dangerous missions, I never hid myself,” said the senior colleague.
But this situation was different.
In the darkness they saw little and only heard the shots.
“I didn't know who, why and how many.
In me everything switched to survival.«
The colleagues on the witness stand had also defended the accused: He "absolutely did not blame them," said the police officer who was shot in action.
He was convinced that the situation would have gone like this regardless of what his colleagues did or didn't do.
kha/dpa