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Hanau (AP) - The Hanau public prosecutor's office initiated an investigation into the racially motivated attack on Thursday after reports of a possibly poorly staffed police emergency number in the city.
At the request of the German Press Agency, the Hanau authority announced that it was about the allegation that the police emergency number could not be reached on the day of the attack.
"As part of this procedure, the facts are first determined and then checked on this basis whether criminal behavior can be determined."
The magazine “Monitor”, the Hessischer Rundfunk and the news magazine “Spiegel” had previously reported that on the night of the attack on February 19 last year the police emergency number was overloaded and apparently insufficiently manned.
Hesse's Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) emphasized the quick action of the emergency services in response to the reports.
It is important that the police were very close to the crime scenes at night, Beuth told the program “17:30 SAT.1 Live”.
The Federal Prosecutor General will then explain the question of how the emergency call center was manned and how many calls were made.
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On February 19, 2020, a 43-year-old German shot nine people with foreign roots in Hanau.
The man had previously posted pamphlets and videos of conspiracy theories and racist views on the Internet.
After the fact, the 43-year-old is also said to have killed his mother before killing himself.
According to the research, documentation of the emergency calls shows that five calls to the emergency number 110 should have been registered between 9:55 p.m. and 10:09 p.m.
Witnesses reported that the 110 could not be reached.
The chairman of the Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter, Sebastian Fiedler, said “Monitor” that it was “not unlikely” that with more knowledge of witnesses, one would “have had the opportunity to prevent subsequent acts”.
After the reports, Hanau's mayor Claus Kaminsky demanded complete clarification and the assumption of political responsibility.
If the research on what happened on the night of the attack is correct, “it is a question of political decency to finally educate the public and take political responsibility”.
In view of the suspected circumstances that have become known, it is no longer acceptable that the Hessian Interior Minister in the Interior Committee unreservedly praises the police work on the night of the attack.
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At a committee meeting in the summer, Beuth praised the police work with no ifs and buts in the presence of the victims' relatives.
Kaminsky said he was of the opinion that the emergency services did their best.
But when the best in terms of a lack of staff and organizational deficiencies reaches its limits, it should not only trigger thought among the politically responsible.
Even then, the relatives reacted with incomprehension to the interior minister's interpretation of the events.
"According to today's media reports, it must sound like mockery to their ears."
Regarding reports about a locked emergency exit in one of the crime scenes, a bar, the city's regulatory office announced: "The city regulatory office has no evidence of this."
Because of the locked emergency exit, there were complaints and controls among the operator at the time in 2013 and 2017.
A few weeks before the attack, a new landlord took over the bar.
"There have been no indications of closed escape routes for the public order office since November 2017, but especially at the time of the new operator in 2020", it says in a message.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210128-99-212052 / 2