Civil rights activists in Germany have demanded an independent inquiry into alleged police racism after an officer shot a 21-year-old black man from behind, killing him after an altercation outside a nightclub.
The 27-year-old officer was suspended from duty over the shooting early on Sunday morning in the city of Oldenburg in north-west Germany pending a murder investigation, said state prosecutors. Fatal police shootings are relatively rare in Germany and prosecutors were quoted in local media as saying the suspension and investigation were “routine”.
Police have not identified the victim due to data protection laws but media and pressure groups have identified him as Lorenz A.
No, it really doesn’t. German shoots and kills, on average, fewer than 10 people per year. The total amount of bullets discharged at people hovers around 50 to 60.
In a country of 83 million.
The US population is four times larger and the number of victims of police shootings is literally 100 times higher. An estimated 1173 in 2024 and the US internationally doesn’t even properly track this number.
Heck, even France’s police kill significantly more people than Germany’s “trigger happy nazi cops”.
In fairness to him, the number of people killed by police is rising and there are nazi cops. Still, can’t pull the trigger in Germany without an investigation and nazis can/do get kicked out of the police just for being one
Germany, like most countries, does have issues with law enforcement. But, as you noticed, so far our checks and balances hold - at least when it comes to fatal violence.
I don’t think you can extrapolate any trend from the extremely low annual numbers. 2024 was indeed an unusually violent year (even though official stats haven’t been finalized afaik), but looking at 2025s numbers so far, this does not appear to indicate any trend.