In Dortmund, a man died after a police operation. The officials were there because of a suspected rioter in the Dorstfeld district. There were supposed to be acts of resistance against emergency services early Wednesday morning, according to the police in Dortmund. “As part of the mission, the male person required resuscitation.” The emergency services began resuscitation of the man and were then replaced by an emergency doctor, as a police spokeswoman said. The man died in the hospital. There was initially no information on the identity of the dead man.
The DPA news agency and “Ruhr Nachrichten” reported that the officials had used a distance electric impulse device (“Taser”) against the man. A spokesman for the Recklinghausen police, which has taken over the investigation into the incident for reasons of neutrality, said when asked by stern that it was still unclear whether the victim was hit by the device. “So far we only know that a distance electro-pulsing device was triggered.” The body is to be autopsied. An officer was injured during the operation.
It is the first police operation with a Taser in NRW that ended fatally.
The stun gun was a major topic of discussion during the coalition negotiations in North Rhine-Westphalia. The CDU and the Greens finally agreed to continue testing the devices until 2024 and to connect them to a body cam.
For the Dortmund police, it is the second fatal operation within a few weeks. On August 8, a 16-year-old refugee from Senegal was shot dead by a police officer in Dortmund. In this case, the public prosecutor’s office is investigating five officers.
According to the state of the investigation known so far, an officer is said to have shot the youth six times with a submachine gun. The 16-year-old died in hospital after being hit by four projectiles. The critical question is whether and how the youth approached the officers with a knife.
