Shortly before Christmas on Saturday, December 23, there was another murder by the police in Mannheim. A 49-year-old father, who was in an acute mental crisis, was killed by several police officers with four shots.
The case took place in Schönau, a district of Mannheim. Once again, the murdered man was a migrant in a state of mental emergency. He had called the police on his own initiative and he said to them, that he had committed a crime. The cops did not release any nearer information about this. Videos that show the case are circulating on social media. They show three cops standing in front of the person with their guns pulled and demanding that he put down a knife that he was holding in his hand. At the moment when he takes a step in the direction of the cops, they open fire on him. Despite a distance of around eight meters between him and the cops.
The videos also clearly show how the person is hit by the first bullets and falls to the ground while the cops shoot three more bullets at him. Shortly after he fell to the ground covered in blood, videos show the cops rushing at him and handcuffing him. A short time later, he died in hospital from the gunshot wounds.
In an interview with SWR, the daughter of the murdered man says, that her father had been mentally ill for some time and that the police had already experienced a similar incident with him, so that he was actually known to the local police. The daughter insisted that her father was not dangerous and that everyone knew this. She clearly stated that there was no legitimate reason to kill her father. The murdered man's neighbors also told, that the police's actions were excessive and that they did not understand why the man was not overpowered by the police in a different way. One neighbor, for example, said: "Three police officers in a shooting position, four shots in a row? Hello? That's shooting to kill instead of shooting at the legs!"
This is not the only case in which someone has been killed by German cops. The cops often simply use it as an excuse that the victims were actually or supposedly carrying a knife and that the cops therefore allegedly had no choice but to kill them. This is not the first case of lethal police violence in Mannheim. For example, on May 2. last year, a mentally ill person was overpowered by the police and beaten to death by hitting him on the head. Just one week later, on May 10, the next deadly police operation took place. Another mentally ill person, who was threatening to injure himself with a knife, was killed by a shot from a police weapon. Such cases are not isolated incidents, they are a regular occurrence. We must fight against them. In May 2022, for example, there were large protests in Mannheim city center against the killings by the cops, which also led to attacks on cops and on the police station of the killers from May 2. This year, too, the youth from the working-class neighborhoods of Germany will probably respond to the excessive violence of the cops in many places on the night of December 31.
