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.

  • SphereofWreckening@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    I am not sure how pepper spray is supposed to stop someone from wildly slashing around.

    Blinding someone takes out a lot of their capabilities. It’s hard to hit a target you can’t see. And the vast majority of people with pepper spray in their eyes are going to grab at their eyes first from the pain/discomfort. I’m surprised I have to point this out.

    Been many times proven to be unreliable: Highly depends on what the attacker is wearing or which mental state he is in.

    The vast majority of people tend to tense up when tazed. Some people handle it better than others, but most people are getting stopped by a tazer. And again, pepper spray is another option if the tazer failed. The gun should have only been a last resort if no other options worked and the suspect was still trying to stab someone.

    Guess we should task you with the investigation, since you appear to know a lot more than the rest of us.

    They literally shot the man in the back three times, but K.

    • einkorn@feddit.org
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      13 hours ago

      And the vast majority of people with pepper spray in their eyes […]

      The vast majority of people tend to tense up when tazed. […]

      You see a pattern there? I’m not sure whether I am comfortable with “in the vast majority of cases, I was not murderer by a guy charging at me with a knife”.

      They literally shot the man in the back three times, but K.

      And that implies what exactly? Could have been running away, maybe. Could have turned on someone else, also possible. We do not know. Which is the whole point of the investigation, which according to you is a close and shut case. For all we know, police could have used all of those things, and we just focus on the fact that he was killed in the end.

      There are clear cases of police brutality and violations of citizen rights in Germany. A guy throwing tear gas and wielding a knife simply has a high probability of not being one of them.

      • SphereofWreckening@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        The lack of it being mentioned by the police is a good reason to believe that Tazers and Pepper Spray were not used. Otherwise they would have lead with that when talking about this case. On top of that, the officer in question shot this man in the back. Three times. And I’m supposed to believe that all non-lethal means to stop this man were exhausted? I highly doubt it.

        And just because a person does wrong and deserves punishment does not mean they deserve to be murdered by the state. This person had the potential to be dangerous. That doesn’t mean that he gets an automatic death sentence because some cop decided so. And I’d very much argue unloading a gun in a population center is far more dangerous then any agitated man with a knife.

        I may not have been there personally, but you weren’t either. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just as valid to be critical of the police in question as I have been. After all: you’ve been doing essentially the exact same thing by defending the police’s actions without any evidence that they exhausted all other non-lethal means.

        • einkorn@feddit.org
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          13 hours ago

          you’ve been doing essentially the exact same thing

          No, you have been arguing that this is a case of police brutality simply off of the fact that the person was shot in the back. I have been arguing that this situation is not as black and white as you suggest due to various possible circumstances.

          Your whole choice of words just shows, that you have already made up your mind despite, as you said yourself, not being there.