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Anyone who draws a gun while facing armed police officers is either acting very rashly - or extremely purposefully.
Because of course, in such a situation, the officers cannot, yes, do anything other than shoot themselves.
Self-protection always has priority, there is no doubt about that.
The wanted top terrorist Willy Peter Stoll, 28 years old, died in the early evening of September 6, 1978.
Barely three quarters of an hour before the fatal shots were shot, a young man with a thin mustache had entered the Düsseldorf Chinese restaurant “Shanghai” that Wednesday at around 6.15 p.m.
He was dressed inconspicuously - light gray flannel trousers, a brown plaid open shirt and a dark gray jacket.
The only thing that was noticeable about him was his obvious nervousness.
Again and again he looked at the door as if he was expecting an unpleasant visitor.
Willy Peter Stoll (1950-1978) was one of the leading members of the second RAF generation
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
First the guest drank an alt beer, then he ordered - boiled lobster on soybeans, sweet and sour soup and jasmine tea.
The most expensive menu on the menu: DM 26.
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According to later information, either a woman in the dining room or a waiter wondered about the nervous young man.
Or maybe both versions are wrong;
they could also only have been spread to prevent acts of revenge through confusion.
In any case, someone in the "Shanghai" was sure to have recognized the guest.
Was it really Willy Peter Stoll, one of the ten most wanted terrorists in the RAF?
Who was definitely one of Hanns Martin Schleyer's kidnappers, identified by fingerprints in the apartment where the terrorists had hidden their hostages for a few days a year earlier?
The fatal shots were fired in this Chinese restaurant on Düsseldorf's Oststrasse
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
At around 6:33 p.m. the witness (or witness) reported the suspicion to the nearest police station;
the latest wanted photos were available there.
Another positive identification.
The Düsseldorf police triggered a silent alarm.
Three radio patrols drove as quickly as possible to “Shanghai” at Oststrasse 156 on the edge of the city center, of course without sirens.
They positioned themselves in such a way that they could block all escape routes that led away from the restaurant - to the north to Stresemannstrasse, to the south to Alexanderstrasse and also in the garage courtyard behind the house, which could only be reached from Bahnstrasse.
Then a fourth police vehicle, a civil patrol, stopped in front of the bar.
Two young officers entered the "Shanghai", sat down at a table and ordered.
It was about 6.45 p.m.
About ten minutes later they both got up and walked the few steps over to the young man who was sitting alone.
Then one of the two plainclothes police officers said: “Hands up!
Police!"
Detective officers securing evidence in "Shanghai"
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
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What happened next, a good half dozen witnesses described differently in detail, but basically always similar: The young man jumped up, pushed his jacket and led his hand to a shoulder-shouldered man with the pommel of a large handgun.
The two officers pulled the trigger five times in total.
Four bullets hit the terrorist in the chest, shoulder, upper arm and wrist, and a fifth bullet hit the wall.
The young man collapsed.
He received first aid as quickly as possible, an ambulance was on site at 7.15 p.m., and eight minutes later the man who had been shot arrived at the emergency room at the Düsseldorf University Clinic.
There the attending physician determined the death at 7.40 p.m.
In the meantime, officials had secured the "Shanghai".
There was almost no longer any doubt about the man's identity, because he had a false Austrian identity card, an equally false British passport and a driver's license with him, all made out in the name of Herbert Wendel.
The photos in the papers show that there was hardly any doubt Willy Peter Stoll.
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The weapon of the wanted top terrorist turned out to be a heavy pistol, loaded with eight cartridges with flattened tips: dum-dum projectiles, which are only permitted in the hunt to give wounded animals the coup de grace.
The police did the right thing when they shot.
The case was filed as a clear case of self-defense.
Peter-Jürgen Boock (born 1951) belonged with Stoll to the RAF command that kidnapped employer president Hanns Martin Schleyer in 1977
Source: picture alliance / ZB
A quarter of a century after Stoll's death in the Düsseldorf Chinese restaurant, the former top terrorist Peter-Jürgen Boock, also one of the Schleyer kidnappers, put forward the thesis that the “comrade” did not want to shoot himself, but rather pulled his weapon to be shot.
"Suicide by Cop" is the name given to such a calculation, which was first described in the case of offenders in the USA.
In fact, second-tier left-wing terrorists who were later accused testified that Stoll had suffered from depression since the Schleyer kidnapping.
But these could also be protective claims;
there was no evidence of this.
Questions remain unanswered about the violent death of Willy Peter Stoll - as with many other crimes committed by the RAF.
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This article was first published in 2018.