The federal prosecutor’s office is bringing charges against a “Reich citizen” who is said to have shot at police officers in Boxberg (Main-Tauber district) in Baden-Württemberg last spring. The accused will soon have to answer to the State Security Office of the Higher Regional Court in Stuttgart for multiple attempted murders, as the authority announced on Wednesday in Karlsruhe. The man had fired numerous shots at police officers during a SEK operation and injured two.
The highest German prosecuting authority also charges the German with, among other things, assaulting law enforcement officers, dangerous bodily harm and violations of weapons law.
According to the prosecutors, the man represents a “Reich citizen” ideology and denies the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany. When 14 police special forces came to the apartment of the then 54-year-old in Boxberg in the early morning of April 20 to execute a search warrant from the Mosbach district court, the accused fired numerous shots at the police officers with a rapid-fire rifle through the lowered shutters in order to avoid them hold true.
A bullet hit an officer in both legs. Another suffered minor injuries to his elbow while trying to protect himself. The accused only gave up after about two hours. Inside the building, police found several firearms — including three automatic rifles and two submachine guns — and over 5,000 rounds of ammunition and supplies.
Permission to own guns had been revoked
The background to the operation was information from the police, according to which the man had a working Glock handgun, although the weapons authority had revoked a gun owner’s license.
The shooter was arrested during the operation and has been in prison ever since. The basis was initially an arrest warrant from the district court Tauberbischofsheim, the federal prosecutor had taken over the investigation on April 22 because of the special importance of the case.
Attorney General Peter Frank announced in the summer that he wanted to take on more cases from the “Reichsbürger” scene. His followers were increasingly violent and also used firearms, he said at the time. The Boxberg case showed the level of brutality with which police officers were dealt with. At the beginning of December, 25 people from the Reich citizen scene were arrested during one of the largest police operations against extremists in Germany.
