Africans in Germany. About 200 young demonstrators held a rally on Tuesday in the western German city of Dortmund to protest against police violence, after a 16-year-old Senegalese teenager died of wounds inflicted after being shot by an officer.
According to the state prosecutors, the young man is said to have been an unaccompanied refugee minor from Senegal, and was shot after police responded to a call for assistance by a youth welfare facility.
A staff member at the facility made the emergency call saying she had seen the young man with a knife. Police arrived at the scene and attempted to disarm the teenager with the use of stun guns and tear gas, before one officer opened fire shooting the teenager 5 times.
The teenager was said to be suicidal, but is also said to have attacked the officers with a knife. Five bullets hit him: one in the stomach, one in the jaw, three more in the shoulder and forearm. He was taken to the hospital, but died despite an emergency operation.
The police officer who fired the shots is currently under investigation as is usual in such cases, said state prosecutor Carsten Dombert, who is in charge of the probe. He said the investigation would take several weeks
Police shootings are rare in Germany compared to many other countries. One representative study showed that in 2020, German police used firearms 159 times against people, of which 49 were warning shots. Fifteen people died as a result of shots fired by police and 41 were injured.