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'.
I disagree. He had broken into her home out in town and was fair game. Additionally, he might not have even been I.D.'d as a US soldier until after he was shot and killed.
I'm a sailor and whenever we pull into port, we are reminded that if we break the local laws, we're on our own. Often, the local police will do a "courtesy turnover" for drunk and disorderly sailors but not for something like this.
Of course it was all an oversight and he would be mailing them a check sofort. I was battalion S-2 clerk and had a .45 in my desk draw. I was also the first person you saw on entering battalion HQ. The very first thing a GI in Germany learned was not to give the Polizei any Scheiss. In the day, European police in general were a lot less inclined to take any than the cops in the World.
this allows to open the door to....germany is a quagmire....the US should pull its troops and withdraw a.s.a.p.!!!!! FDR & Truman lied.....US troops must die....
the lib/dems are all over juan mccain for his 100 year iraq comment...but never mention ~ germany/korea/bosnia & kosovo...oh wait...the lib/dems put the US troops in these places....so it does NOT count!!!!
It’s called the Status of Forces Agreement; the US has them with most countries, as do those countries with soldiers training here in the US. I could just imagine a German soldier training at Ft Bliss or Ft Sill being remanded to the German military after a similar incident. Would not go over well.
I wonder how people in Germany are reacting to this?
It is possible to get a firearm in germany, but it is very difficult. I also suspect that German weapon laws are a lot more strict now than in the seventies. An example of this is that the German government recently passed a law banning the possession of toys that resemble real firearms.
It is possible to purchase a firearm in Germany. However, you have to have a “waffenschein” (license) for the weapon. Getting a weapons license and a hunting license is very expensive. And, to the extent of my knowledge, you cannot store your weapons in your house, but have to leave them at a shooting club.
“I wonder how people in Germany are reacting to this?”
Most people are wondering how he managed to get his M4 off base. Due to the strict gun laws in Germany walking around with a M4 is a crime. So by german law police was allowed to shoot him in self defence, even if he only pointed on’em with the gun.
“I have a problem when we let Germans and not our own army deal with such problems. It’s a bad precedent.”
It all happened on german soil, off the base, nobody might have known that he is a us soldier until he got killed.
Good for them. Sad that it had to be done.
***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
***he threatened them with the semi-automatic rifle and was shot,***
?
so, what was he armed with?
The Euro press (even more left than ours, if that's even possible) loves to portray American GIs as murderous thugs or automatons. Many on the Left fall for this hook, line, and sinker. 60+ years of commie propaganda has that effect.
They'll blow it all out of proportion.
That was my first thought. It confirms their prejudices. I would expect a kind of leftist glee over this.
Except I’ll bet it’s more than just the lefties. It’ll bet it’s the nationalist types too.
If not, I wonder what they shot him with..
The German Police do not mess around. When they tell you to stop, you stop. Any aggressive move whatsoever on the part of a potential perp is handled very severely.
I lived thee for two years in the 70's.
If this report is accurate, then the German Police did, off base, on their soveriegn soil, what they had to do to protect themselves and their citizens.
I's too bad one of our own behaved in this manner...but we have bad apples and he acted criminally and threatened life, and paid with his own.
While I was there, one guy took a tank off base and ended up running through a German town and crushing several cars. German citizens were killed. In that case MP's got on top of the tank and were able to get it opened and stop the guy. There was a big international flap over it because as you can imagine, the Germans wanted that guy. I can't remember whether afterwards they ever got him...but I know the Germans were extremely angy (and understandbly so) over it. The guy porobably got harsher treatment in Leavenworth or somewhere as he would have gotten in Germany...but I cannot blame them for wanting to try and punish him themsleves.
Long before 9/11, as you walked through their airports, I used to find it somewhat unsettling to see the their cops in white hat, green blazers and automatic weapons slung over their shoulders.
You never saw such a display of force in the U.S. like that.
You must be thinking of England. German Police are armed to the teeth. Go to the Frankfurt airport and you would think you were in downtown Iraq. It is heavily armed with police with submachine guns around their necks. All German patrol police carry side arms. But having lived in Germany for 10 of my 20 years on active duty, YOU DO NOT MESS with the German police. They will beat the crap out of you. German law is different than American law, thus they get away with more force over there. Can beat a confession out of you sometimes and get away with it. They also have strong anti-terrorist teams since the Munich massacre back in the Olympics in 1972. I was there at that time. I had been to the Games just that prior week in Munich before this happened. All US forces in Germany were put on high alert that day.
I lived in that region of Germany for most of 2007. The bases in that area (Bamberg, Schweinfurt, Wuerzburg) are involved in pre-deployment and post-deployment activities. More than likely I would assume that this was someone coming back from Iraq.
I’ve talked with a few of these guys over beers in various pubs during the evening. They can get quite rowdy. But they pump A LOT of money into the local economy. It will be sad when those bases close down.
Ping.
This is where I was living over there.
What a stupid reply.
It is said (in other sources) that he illegally took the semi-automatic gun (! you can´t buy that in Germany!) from the armory of his unit. Depending on the rank and influence of this soldier, this doesn´t sound strange.
That’s possible to do, even for a low-ranking Soldier. It depends on a multitude of factors, the most prominent one being how closely the company armorer tracks his arms room inventory before closing up for the day. Obviously that commander has some ‘splainin’ to do.
The incident is reported in a neutral way, just like the Yahoo message. This happens every day somewhere in the world - maybe not with soldiers involved, but you can find mad ex-friends all around. Since it´s not a special US/German affair, it´s not a big news message here. Don´t worry, the Iraq war destroyed all the US reputation, but Barrack Osama will build it up again! :-/
In the German forces, nobody gets off until the unit armory is counted and safe. When I was in deputy CO, it was the most important thing to ask in the late afternoon: “armory closed, counted and safe?” So I can imagine, the offender took the gun over the day, made it somehow off the base and kidnapped his ex.
These days, Army national guard patrols JFK airport, too.
Don´t worry, the Iraq war destroyed all the US reputation, but Barrack Osama will build it up again! :-/
I wonder what you mean by this. Is this sarcasm? Or are you venting a little of your own angst towards America here?
Kinda off topic, but.....
A news story actually identifies the Division and Brigade of an Army soldier! Usually it's something like, "A U.S. Army soldier, who was in 1st Platoon....."
One of the first things they told us upon arrival to US Army-Europe was: “if stopped by the police, do exactly what they tell you to. Call the MP’s when you get a chance”. Why? German police are heavily armed, well trained, and don’t mess around. Always appeared to be good advice.
Regards,
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