The police stopped a motorist with 30 shots (symbolic image)
Photo: Carsten Rehder/ picture alliance / dpa
After the police had a chase with a man in North Rhine-Westphalia, they stopped the driver with shots. Six officers fired more than 30 shots during the operation, as the public prosecutor's office in Detmold and the police in Bielefeld announced on Wednesday. The suspect, who was hit five times, is now out of danger.
On the road without lights
The incident had occurred early Saturday morning in Bad Salzuflen. Accordingly, patrol officers in Herford wanted to control the 19-year-old motorist. He had caught the attention of the police because he was driving without lights. They told him to stop. But the man drove away.
Patrol cars pursued his car to a cul-de-sac in a residential area in neighboring Bad Salzuflen. Here the driver turned in a dead end and drove at high speed towards the officers who had gotten out in the meantime.
Racer crashed into patrol car
The police then fired their service weapons at the car, which then crashed into one of the patrol cars. The young man was also hit. A police officer was slightly injured in the operation, the authorities said. Six others would have suffered a shock.
So far, it is still unclear whether there was a danger to the officers and whether the suspect had deliberately driven towards the police officers. According to the police, the 19-year-old was traveling without a driver's license. The car was registered to a relative of the suspect.
Rescue workers brought the man with a helicopter to a hospital in Hanover, danger to life could not be ruled out at first. Previously, the »Westfalen-Blatt« had reported. In the meantime, the condition of the motorist has stabilized, as a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office in Detmold confirmed.
jpa/AFP