Case Kemal C.

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The "Kemal C. case" was a police operation in June 1989 in Essen , in which a 13-year-old boy was shot dead by police officers in self-defense after he had repeatedly shot at police officers with a service weapon stolen from a police officer. After a debt from him Traffic accident with hit and run , it was a pursuit of the young people through the district Essen-Frohnhausen come. Subsequently, the Essen police came under political pressure.

Course of events

On the afternoon of 30 June 1989, the 13-year-old Kemal C. and his 16-year-old passenger went on an unannounced moped through the district Frohnhausen. At approximately 16:30, the teenagers collided with a car the car brand BMW , the vehicle was slightly damaged. Kemal C. fled with the motorized two-wheeler while his co-driver stayed at the scene of the accident. Shortly afterwards, the 13-year-old was stopped by a police patrol car. When the officers took the youth's personal details, he unexpectedly used his helmet as a weapon against the patrolmen and tried to flee on foot. After Kemal C. was caught again, there was a scuffle between him and one of the two police officers. In the course of the argument, a police officer went down with the youth. Kemal C. pulled the officer's weapon from the holster. A shot went off and the police officer suffered a circulatory collapse. The youngster took the opportunity to flee in the direction of the Dortmund – Duisburg railway line . During his escape, the youth shot in the direction of another patrol car crew without hitting. The report on the police radio about the escape of the armed youth triggered a large-scale operation in which 50 police officers, including four officers from the Special Operations Command (SEK) , were involved. Two police helicopters were also used. The pursuit of youth stretched mainly along and over the railway line between the Bahnhof Essen West and the Essen-Frohnhausen station .

In the course of the persecution, Kemal C. fled over the tracks of the Dortmund – Duisburg line in the direction of the signal box at the Essen West station that was still in existence at the time . When the young person crossed the railway line at Berliner Strasse, he was shot several times. However, the projectiles missed him. Kemal C. climbed over a wall behind which there was an allotment garden . There the youth hid. The allotment garden bordered the site of the former signal box and was located between the rails and Berliner Straße. The complex consisted of six gardens, which could be viewed from the side of a bridge adjacent to the property and from the street in front of the property. It was also possible to view the property from several rental houses on Oberdorfstrasse, Röntgenstrasse and Busehofstrasse. The numerous opportunities to look at the facility made it possible for a large number of onlookers to follow the police operation, which represented a considerable risk, as there had already been shooting and the armed youth had hidden in the allotment garden. The police had problems pushing back the onlookers who were up to twenty meters behind the officers when the property was being converted. When Kemal C. unexpectedly climbed onto the roof of a summer house, police said he was told to stop. The owner of the garden in which the young person was hiding, who lives in the immediate vicinity, had given the police officers the arbor key in advance and assured them that there was no way to escape from the winding complex. According to police reports, the youth aimed at the police officers and onlookers who were watching the police operation from the street. The youth then pointed the gun at the officers shortly after he was asked to stop. The youth were then fired six times, five of which hit. The 13-year-old was hit in the left arm, leg, buttocks and by a bullet in the back from a distance of about fifteen meters. He fell from the roof into an arbor, where he was initially invisible to the emergency services. Sixty minutes later, when a group of SEK officers broke into the garden, they found the youth's body. The fatal shot had penetrated the right half of the thorax . Kemal C. died of internal bleeding.

According to the police and the investigating public prosecutor , the police shot in self-defense . According to the police, the protection of the many onlookers was one of the main reasons that justified the final rescue shot . Another reason for the decisions made during the police operation was that the youth was assessed by the emergency services as older due to his size and it was not assumed that such a young criminal would be prosecuted. In retrospect it was found that the magazine of the weapon was already empty at this point. It is believed that several cartridges fell out of the gun when the youth reloaded them in pursuit. Two more cartridges were found in his pants pockets during the subsequent autopsy.

consequences

The death of the 13-year-old high school student caused concern in the Rhine-Ruhr region and occasionally in other federal states. The question arose how the police operation could escalate to such an extent. In retrospect, there was no doubt that the young person was responsible for the situation himself. However, contradictions between the police version and several witnesses sparked a public debate on the proportionality of the police operation. The fact that the investigating public prosecutor justified the behavior of the police officers shortly after the death of the 13-year-old also caused public criticism. The daily newspapers Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and Neue Ruhr Zeitung reported on the youth's rampage, and on the other hand, the Essen police were accused of cornering the 13-year-old and of having been complicit in his death. In addition, the question arose of how a police operation of this magnitude could be carried out without an operational command. Another point of criticism was the behavior of the SEK, which left it to ordinary patrolmen to catch the armed youth while they were in the garden.

The Humanist Union demanded in an open letter to the then North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Schnoor an "unbiased official and disciplinary investigation of the case". The letter also asked how the young person could get hold of the weapon and whether the police had observed the principle of the proportionality of the means. The member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia Horst Radtke put several questions to the state government in connection with the case of the young person who was shot. The questions were aimed, among other things, at clarifying how the young person could get to the weapon without major problems and why it was unsecured. A member of the Federal Working Group of Critical Police Officers noted that, in his opinion, the police officers involved in the operation did not act according to the level of training. By establishing the passenger's personal details, it would have been possible to identify the fugitive.

After Kemal C.'s death, the family filed a complaint against two police officers who were suspected of having fired the fatal shot. The investigation into the suspicion of negligent homicide was closed by the public prosecutor in September 1989. The bullet that had fatally hit the youth was no longer traceable and so it could not be determined which of the two accused police officers had fired the shot that led to the death. Furthermore, the descriptions of the witnesses differed so much that no conclusions could be drawn. A few days after the fatal incident in the Frohnhausen district, demonstrations against the police took place in Essen. A week after the incident, up to 250 demonstrators gathered in front of the Essen police headquarters to demonstrate against the police operation in the case of the young person who was shot. The Greens , among others, had called for the demonstration, and on a leaflet they called for the police operation to be publicly explained. At the beginning of September 1989 there was a repeated demonstration through the city center of Essen, at which the question of self-defense was raised as a reason for the police to act.

The Federal Working Group of Critical Policemen and Policemen and the member of the German Bundestag Manfred Such filed charges against the investigating public prosecutor on suspicion of preventing punishment in office following the decision of the public prosecutor to dismiss .

The then Mayor of Essen, Peter Reuschenbach, visited the mother of the young man who had died.

The youth's body was buried in Turkey.

Following the Kemal C. case, the question arose whether the holsters used at the time for police pistols could be improved.

Testimony

The events in the gardens were portrayed differently by some eyewitnesses. According to several witnesses, the youth held the gun in one hand, but both hands slightly upward to surrender when it stood on the garden roof. He was told to stop, whereupon there was immediate fire. A total of 15 witnesses were heard. The statements of the two shooters also differed from each other.

The private working group Kemal C. , which was formed after the events from the Foreigners Advisory Council , the Youth Welfare Association and the Greens to support the investigation, expressed the suspicion that the officers shot the 13-year-old perpetrator during the chase without trying to get the youngster to give up. Another shot is said to have been fired after the fatal shots. The working group pointed to a witness who had observed the events from his apartment across from the gardens and stated that Kemal C. was no longer armed when the fatal shots were fired. The youth stood with slightly raised arms on the gazebo before he was shot. The witness presented the police with a photo taken from his apartment, which allegedly showed that there were no onlookers standing behind the police when the young person was standing on the garden shed. According to the work group's presentation, the behavior of the police caused the young people to panic. The working group also criticized the fact that not all service weapons that were used in the police operation were examined and that allegedly not all witness statements were included in the investigation files. In the opinion of the working group, not enough attempts have been made to show the young person a way out of the worsening situation. The statements of the working group as well as those of the police were confirmed by a number of testimonies, but also disproved by a few others.

Representatives of the FDP and JU criticized in open letters that the Kemal C. case was being used to incite hatred against the police. The police union criticized the fact that the youth's death was used for political purposes and that a lack of objective presentations had led to the moral prejudice of the police officers involved in the operation. Members of the SPD said that in a constitutional state, the decisions of the public prosecutor's office would have to be accepted.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kai Süselbeck: The post-war period began with protection against looting. In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung . July 7, 2009. Retrieved July 26, 2012 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Bettina Markmeyer: Deadly hunt for young moped drivers. In: the daily newspaper . July 4, 1989. Retrieved July 26, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Meike Venne, Turkish boy dies after an exchange of fire with the police , Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 1, 1989, number 151
  4. ^ Waz Essen, Public Prosecutor's Office: Police shot 13-year-old Kemal in self-defense , Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of September 13, 1989, number 214
  5. ^ A b c Bettina Markmeyer: Catastrophic Police Deployment. In: the daily newspaper . July 5, 1989. Retrieved July 26, 2012 .
  6. ^ A b Bettina Markmeyer: Police did not act in self-defense. In: the daily newspaper . July 5, 1989. Retrieved July 26, 2012 .
  7. ↑ a b Bernd Kassner and Arnold Rennemeyer, He's stuck and won't get out again , Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 4, 1989, number 153
  8. ↑ a b c d Hubert Wolf and Bernd Kassner, Five police balls met 13-year-old boys , Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 4, 1989, number 153
  9. ↑ Bernd Kassner The fatal shot hit Kemal C. in the back , Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 4, 1989, number 153
  10. ↑ Meike Venne Targeted at police officers and onlookers , Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 3, 1989, number 152
  11. ↑ Bettina Markmeyer: Shot from behind in self-defense. In: the daily newspaper . September 14, 1989. Retrieved July 26, 2012 .
  12. ^ A b Bettina Markmeyer: Demo against police methods. In: the daily newspaper . July 8, 1989. Retrieved July 26, 2012 .
  13. ^ "Report against Public Prosecutor Schmalhausen", Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of September 15, 1989, number 216
  14. ^ Waz Essen, Public Prosecutor's Office: Police shot 13-year-old Kemal in self-defense , Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of September 13, 1989, number 214
  15. ↑ a b Bettina Markmeyer: New testimony in the case of Kemal C. In: the daily newspaper . July 17, 1989. Retrieved July 26, 2012 .