|
|
|
Subject:
U.S. soldier is shot and killed by German police
Nasty German Idiot
3/15/2008 8:36:53 AM
|
U.S. soldier is shot and killed by German police
By Nicholas Kulish
Published: March 14, 2008
BERLIN: The German police shot and killed a U.S. Army soldier in Bavaria after he took a former girlfriend hostage, the local police said Friday.
According to the police, the 30-year-old soldier, armed with a military-issue M-4 assault rifle, broke into the German woman's apartment in the town of Koenigsberg on Thursday night. He tied her up, but she still managed to escape and notify the police.
Officers then sealed off the area around the apartment building and brought in a SWAT team to deal with the armed suspect. Police found the soldier, who was still in the vicinity, shortly after 11 p.m., using a helicopter with a thermal camera.
When police officers attempted to arrest him, the soldier threatened them with his weapon, leading them to open fire, according to an official statement released by the Unterfranken district police.
"He was asked in English not to move and all this, but he didn't do it," said Karl-Heinz Schmitt, the police press spokesman, in a telephone interview on Friday.
The soldier was taken to a hospital early Friday morning, where he died. It was unclear whether he had been shot once or multiple times.
An autopsy is scheduled to be performed Monday.
The soldier belonged to the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, known as the "Dagger" Brigade, according to an army news release.
His name was not made public, pending notification of his family.
It was not immediately clear whether the soldier had served in Iraq, but his brigade has been deployed there twice, with the last troops returning from the most recent deployment on Nov. 27.
There are approximately 45,000 American soldiers based in Germany right now.
Schmitt of the Unterfranken police said that the soldier had permission to use the weapon earlier on Thursday, and simply did not return it.
The army said in a news release that it "takes incidents of this nature extremely seriously and will continue to work with the German authorities to maintain community safety." Beyond that, it withheld comment.
"It's still very much under investigation, and it's too early," said Bruce Anderson, an army spokesman in Heidelberg.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Latest
News |
Most
Read |
Hot
Topics |
|
|
|
