Dortmund - Trial after fatal police shooting of fugitive
After the fatal police shooting of a 16-year-old refugee in Dortmund, five officers involved in the operation are on trial. In August 2022, Mouhamed Dramé, who came from Senegal, was shot dead with five shots from a police officer's submachine gun. In the trial that began on Tuesday at Dortmund District Court, the public prosecutor is accusing the 30-year-old shooter of manslaughter. Two female colleagues and one male colleague, aged 29 to 34, are charged with dangerous bodily harm in the line of duty, the 55-year-old officer in charge with incitement to do so.
According to the indictment, the police officers were called to a youth welfare facility because the 16-year-old was apparently handling a knife with suicidal intent. When the police arrived, he was leaning forward against a wall in an inner courtyard, pointing a household knife at his stomach. When he did not respond to a brief approach, a female officer is said to have sprayed him with pepper spray on the orders of her superior. When he then stood up and moved towards the officers, he was allegedly first shot at with Taser stun guns before shots were fired from the submachine gun less than a second later.
At no point was Dramé "asked to put down the knife", according to senior public prosecutor Carsten Dombert. He emphasized that the use of pepper spray, Tasers and the submachine gun was without justification. Five out of six shots fired hit the teenager.
His client and his family are "very burdened" by the proceedings, explained the shooter's defense lawyer, Christoph Krekeler, in a statement at the start of the trial. Dramé had lost his life because of him - the shooter. When Dramé stood up and approached the police officer with a knife, it was not only his client who perceived this as threatening, said Krekeler, referring to the almost simultaneous use of the Taser by his colleagues. The trial will continue on January 10, 2024.
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Source: www.stern.de
