Nfter the shooting that killed eight at a meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Hamburg, an employee of the weapons authority was investigated on suspicion of negligent homicide. The man is said not to have passed on information about the psychological condition of the later shooter within the weapons authority, the Attorney General said on Thursday. Three members of the perpetrator’s shooting club are also being investigated.
Disciplinary proceedings against an official of the weapons authority were opened on Tuesday. “Police President Ralf Martin Meyer ordered administrative investigations at the end of March in order to have the Complaints and Disciplinary Department check whether there was any disciplinary misconduct by a person in the weapons authority. After this allegation was confirmed, formal disciplinary proceedings were initiated and opened to the officer yesterday,” police spokesman Holger Vehren said on Wednesday.
“The official was relieved of his duties in the weapons authority with immediate effect and will be transferred to a function to be coordinated with the human resources department,” said Vehren. The officer is said to have failed in his duty to provide advice and support.
Negligently or knowingly not documented and tracked
According to research by “Zeit”, the official is suspected of having negligently or deliberately not documented and pursued an indication of the danger of the gunman Philipp F. In addition, the official is said to have close ties to the sports shooting club in which the later amok shooter Philipp F. was also active. The police did not comment on this.
For Dennis Gladiator, domestic policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group, the publications about dealing with the gunman Philipp F. for Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD) are becoming more and more dramatic. “Following obvious omissions in dealing with the perpetrator’s well-known book, in which he wrote down his pathological ideas, further omissions are now being uncovered,” said Gladiator on Wednesday. “Should the indications be confirmed that an employee of the weapons authority withheld information about the dangerousness of the perpetrator, the statements by the interior senator that this act probably could not have been prevented are no longer tenable.”
Everything must now be done to fully clarify the details behind this case, also to ensure that such acts can be prevented in the future. “Hamburg needs a new interior senator for this,” said Gladiator.
According to previous knowledge, a relative of Philipp F. had initially contacted the sports shooting club in January to say that the 35-year-old was mentally ill and was becoming more and more aggressive. F. had previously passed his marksmanship test in the club and also ordered the later murder weapon, a semi-automatic pistol.
According to the “Zeit” report, the investigators initially assumed that the sports shooting club only referred the calling relative to the weapons authority, but did not inform the police themselves. However, interrogations have now revealed that there was apparently at least one contact between the club and the police.
On March 9, after a community meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Hamburg-Alsterdorf, Philipp F. killed seven people and finally himself with a semi-automatic pistol. After an anonymous tip a few weeks before the crime, the 35-year-old had been checked by the weapons authority.
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