Posted on 03/15/2008 1:52:07 AM PDT by SolidWood
BERLIN (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier stationed in southern Germany was shot dead by police after threatening an ex-girlfriend and then going on the run armed with an assault rifle, authorities said on Friday.
The 30-year old, who was serving in the 2nd, "Dagger," brigade of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, broke into the woman's house late on Thursday, threatened her and tied her up, police in the Bavarian region of Unterfranken said.
She was able to free herself and alerted the police, who began a search using a commando unit and a helicopter equipped with thermal imaging equipment.
Officers found the soldier several hundred meters from the woman's house and tried to arrest him but he threatened them with the semi-automatic rifle and was shot, police said.
He died in hospital early on Friday, according to a statement from the "Dagger" Brigade Chain of Command.
"The Dagger Brigade along with the United States Army Europe takes incidents of this nature extremely seriously and will continue to work with the German authorities to maintain community safety," the statement said.
The name of the soldier was being withheld until his next of kin had been informed, it added.
German police said there was no indication that officers had acted illegally and prosecutors were not planning to open an investigation into the marksmen.
"The officers had to assume that the suspect was going to fire on them with the weapon," a police statement said.
(Reporting by Iain Rogers, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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Kind of a sad event. This guy had issues and he was messing around with a weapon in Germany...which the German cops won’t give you much discussion. I’m betting either drugs or alcohol were involved as well. Over the past three years...there have been a dozen similar incidents...although this is the only time the cops pulled out their weapons and had to shoot the guy. The interesting thing...these incidents all involve girlfriends or former girlfriends. Here in the Kaiserslautern area...we even had the Army wife (active duty)...who stabbed her alcoholic husband when he threatened her...which she will be facing some kind of assault charges apparently in German court.
Profoundly sad story: nobody wins in this one.
In any sizable group, someone’s going to go bonkers.
Prayers for everyone involved in this tragedy.
Wisdom for the day. Gotta remember that one - simple and true.
Very sad. The cops did what they had to do.
Gun control at work again. Germany has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world, so where did he get his rifle?
I am not military, but (since we arent’ in Switzerland), I can’t imagine that soldiers take their issue rifles home with them.
I wonder how difficult it would've been for him to travel back to the US on leave and mail the rifle to his German address? Probably not very difficult at all.
I would suspect a soldier wouldn’t be so stupid as to break numerous US and German laws by mailing a rifle to himself. If he bought the rifle from a dealer he knows about FFL’s and their role in firearm exchanges.
Additionally, USPS has increased their package screening since 9/11. If a rifle size and weight package being sent to a military APO doesn’t raise suspicions . . .
What I am saying is it seems unlikely that he mailed the rifle to himself.
I would suspect a soldier wouldn’t be so stupid as to break numerous US and German laws by mailing a rifle to himself. If he bought the rifle from a dealer he knows about FFL’s and their role in firearm exchanges.
Additionally, USPS has increased their package screening since 9/11. If a rifle size and weight package being sent to a military APO doesn’t raise suspicions . . .
What I am saying is it seems unlikely that he mailed the rifle to himself.
When I was stationed in Germany in the lates 70’s, we had a “Rod and Gun Club” on base. One could purchase weapons there ... rifles, handguns, shotguns. Most of the guys kept theirs in the armory for safekeeping. There are many hunters in Germany and the game is plentiful. Not being a hunter myself, I’m not sure what all was involved in getting a hunters license but I’m sure that it was legal to own weapons. Many times sitting in an off-base Coventional Weapons storage area early in the morning, guarding the munitions, I would see armed hunters right outside of my fence.
Sad but it appears the cops did the right thing.
Do they let police have guns in Germany? I thought they were basically eunics.
I have a problem when we let Germans and not our own army deal with such problems. It’s a bad precedent.
As for these problems having to deal with girlfriends, it is indeed alarming. Any such could be a foreign spy playing with a guy and we kill our own instead. As a matter of fact it has been the method of feminists of late. Even women who stand by their men see the couple being attacked by jealous third parties and strangely hungry prosecutions.
Ah, not so when we help them out from behind. It’s PC in Germany to kill an American, not so to kill a Turk or an anarchist.
CC
You are thinking of England. The German cops are well armed and professional. You don't want to mess with the German cops.
This sounds like a standard 'suicide by cop'.
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