Julian Rolf case Public prosecutor's office assumes negligent homicide
Bonn · In the case in which a young policeman was killed, the 22-year-old Bonn police officer fired the deadly shot at his colleague Julian Rolf from his Walther P99 DAO service weapon. According to the public prosecutor's office, there were no witnesses to the incident.
The investigations in the case of the young policeman Julian Rolf, who was hit by a bullet from the gun of a colleague in the Bonn police headquarters and died, continue. "We currently assume that this is negligent homicide," prosecutor Sebastian Buß told the GA.
The 22-year-old shooter had had his lawyer explain that the deadly shot in the basement of the office building had accidentally been released. However, this is exactly what is to be prevented by various security mechanisms on the service weapon. How the tragic incident happened at the end of November is not yet known to the authorities. According to the public prosecutor's office in Bonn, there were no eyewitnesses other than the shooter.
Not properly engaged in the holster
Two colleagues who, according to GA information, were in the same hallway, are said to have hurried to the injured person after the shot was fired and treated his life-threatening wound to the neck, the consequences of which led to his death in the hospital about two weeks later.
According to his lawyer Christoph Arnold, the 22-year-old shooter describes the events in a written statement as follows: The service weapon Walther P99 DAO, which he had previously removed from his locker, was not properly locked in the holster. In the hallway, on the way to an exercise, he had pulled out the pistol and tilted it to the side to check it. At that moment a noise had frightened him. In this second, the shot is said to have been fired because it had accidentally reached the trigger. The projectile hit Julian Rolf, who is said to have stood about four metres away.
How did it come to the shot?
How the shot could accidentally come off and whether there was a technical defect, for example, is currently part of the investigation. Both weapons experts and police officers who handle the Walther P99 DAO on a daily basis describe the pistol's safety mechanisms, which made the usual safety lever superfluous.
The model has been used by the police in North Rhine-Westphalia since 2006 and was designed for use by the authorities. The abbreviation "DAO" stands for "Double-Action-Only", which describes the special function of the model when firing a shot. By actuating the trigger, the cock is cocked at the same time, which then rebounds and hits the cartridge case to fire the projectile. Accordingly, a high trigger weight of several kilograms has to be overcome and the trigger has to be pushed through to the end before a shot is fired.
Another small lever, which is very narrow and centered in the trigger, must also be pushed down by the finger - otherwise the trigger is locked. "The trigger force and trigger travel are the same for every shot," says weapon manufacturer Walther. Nobody could be reached at the manufacturer’s at the moment because of the company’s holidays.
(Original text: Nicolas Ottersbach, Translation: Mareike Graepel)
