Outcry in Germany over lack of footage of deadly police shooting

Police in Germany are facing criticism over the lack of body camera footage from officers involved in the fatal shooting of a 21-year-old black man in the north-western city of Oldenburg.

Thomas Feltes, the lawyer representing the victim’s mother, told the HAZ newspaper on Saturday that, in his opinion, “the camera should have been switched on in this case.”

Feltes said he believed a running camera could have helped prevent the incident from escalating.

On the night before Easter Sunday, a police officer fired five shots at the 21-year-old – who is identified only as Lorenz under German privacy law – in Oldenburg’s pedestrian zone.

The autopsy report found that Lorenz was wounded in the hip, upper body and head. Three shots hit him from behind, and a fourth shot is said to have grazed his thigh, according to the report.

Investigators said the German man had previously used pepper spray outside a nightclub, slightly injuring several people, before fleeing.

When patrol officers tried to apprehend him, he approached them in a threatening manner and again directed pepper spray at them, the investigators said.

Rafael Behr from the Hamburg Police Academy described the fact that the police officers were wearing bodycams but had not switched them on as “scandalous.”

The 27-year-old officer who fired the shots has been provisionally suspended. The Oldenburg public prosecutor’s office is investigating the officer on suspicion of manslaughter, which is said to be standard procedure in such cases.

Thousands of people attended a rally and demonstration in Oldenburg on Friday, demanding answers as to why the young black man had been shot. They called for a full investigation into the case.

The police estimated the number of participants at 8,000 to 10,000 and said afterwards that the demonstration had been almost entirely peaceful.