Demonstration in Munich after police shooting of 14-year-old – dispute over replica weapons
Around 100 people demonstrated in Munich on Saturday evening against racist police violence. The trigger was a shooting of a 14-year-old on Tuesday.
Rally following shooting of youth in Schwabing
Around 100 people took to the streets in Munich on Saturday evening to protest the police action following the shooting of a 14-year-old. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, participants marched through the city with banners and expressed their discontent in chants. A police spokesman told the news agency DPA that the rally had remained incident-free.
The protest was triggered by an incident last Tuesday in which a police officer fired at the youth. The Left Munich and the Kurdish Centre had already made serious allegations on Wednesday, citing the boy's parents. According to them, the 14-year-old had merely had a toy gun with him and, after the officers' request, threw it "immediately to the ground" and repeatedly shouted loudly: "It's a toy gun! Don't shoot!"
Munich police describe the sequence of events differently: a plainclothes officer had fired at the moment when the boy turned towards him whilst still holding the weapon in his hands. The replica weapon, later identified as a soft-air pistol, was not immediately recognisable as a toy due to its appearance. The youth's family "firmly rejects" the police account and also speaks of restraint and humiliation. The injured party himself has not yet been questioned.
The incident has also triggered political reactions in the Munich city council. The factions Alliance 90/The Greens-Rosa Lista and the SPD are calling for stricter regulations on replica weapons. Specifically, they are demanding that the city work at federal and state level, as well as through the German Association of Cities, to ban the sale of toy guns, soft-air weapons and comparable arms if, due to their size, shape and design, they cannot be clearly distinguished from real firearms.
Additionally, state parliament representatives Gülseren Demirel and Florian Siekmann from the Green parliamentary group plan to submit a written enquiry to the Bavarian state government in order to, according to their own statements, ensure the greatest possible transparency in the case.
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung