Police see a connection Two men remain at large after street robberies in Bonn

Duisdorf · A couple of robberies occurred out in the open on a street in Duisdorf on Thursday. Bonn police see a connection between the two crimes.

Police see a connection: Two men remain at large after street robberies in Bonn
Foto: dpa (Symbolbild)

The 40-year-old then wanted to set off in her gray VW Polo car to visit her patient. She was expected to get to him at 6:10 a.m.

Only a few meters away from the office that morning at 6 a.m., a man was calling attention to himself with hand signals as he stood in the street. The health service employee stopped her car and opened the window. At that moment, a second man came out of an adjacent bush and held a gun to her head. When she did not understand what the men, who were believed to have spoken Arabic, wanted from her, they repeated their demands in English.

That's the account of what happened as told by her boss, Petter Rogge, who runs the health care service together with his wife. The office is only a few meters away from Rochusstrasse in the center of Duisdorf. What Rogge explains is also documented in the police report, wich includes the following: "The perpetrators stole a purse with cash and personal items from a backpack belonging to the victim - they then fled in the direction of the pedestrian zone/Rochus Church.”

In the afternoon, some hours after the crime, a resident with a baby carriage was standing in front of his house. It is right next to the home health-care service. He hadn't noticed anything in the morning. Even an employee who had been in the office early that morning when the health care worker fetched the key, did not notice what had happened on the street, says Rogge.

Rogge sits in the small office with several other employees. They seem stunned by what took place that morning. Rogge reports that police later recovered his co-worker's wallet, empty except for a shopping list. She was able to pick it up at the police station. "She was doing reasonably ok when she got home," Rogge says of his co-worker's state of mind after the crime.

A few moments later the second robbery happened

The robbery in front of the home health-care service is not the only one that happened on Thursday morning in Duisdorf. At around 6:15 a.m., a 59-year-old man was walking along Heilsbachstrasse, which is not far from Weierbornstrasse and Konrad-Adenauer-Damm. Two men were sitting on a bench there. As the 59-year-old walked past the bench, he heard footsteps behind him.

Finally, the two spoke to him in English. They threatened him with a pistol and demanded that he give them his laptop bag. With the stolen possessions, the two men then fled into the pedestrian underpass of the Konrad Adenauer Dam, which leads into the Derletal. According to the current state of the investigation, the police assume that there is a connection between the two crimes.

Perpetrator description from police

On Thursday morning, police responded with several patrol cars in Duisdorf, according to a police spokesman, but were unable to apprehend the two perpetrators.

Police described the two suspects as follows: The one man is about 1.60 meters tall (5’ 2 “) and between 20 and 30 years old. He wore a black cap and a black jacket, spoke English and Arabic. The second suspect is slightly taller than his accomplice and between 20 and 25 years old. He was also wearing a black cap and had a black hood on. He also communicated in English and Arabic.

Use of weapons in broad daylight out in the open is very unusual

A spokesman from the Bonn police says it is very unusual that a victim is held up with a gun out on the street. A look in the archives of the GA confirms this, for the last decades there has been no such case in Duisdorf and surroundings. According to the spokesman, firearms are more likely to be used in robberies of stores and banks.

Such cases have occurred in Duisdorf not too long ago. Most recently in a robbery at a bank branch in Duisdorf in April of this year: the perpetrator threatened an employee of the bank with a pistol and demanded money from her. During the crime, a shot was fired; it remains unclear whether it was a live firearm or a blank pistol.

Rogge says that it was not the first attack on one of his female employees from the health care service. About ten years ago, one of them was knocked down and robbed in the passageway to the Rochus Church. The last case was perhaps a year ago, he said, when the perpetrators stole an employee's bag containing her valuables. "We are now thinking about how we can better protect our employees," Rogge says. Right now, he says, someone is on his way to get pepper spray for them.

Anyone who witnessed something which could be related to the crime or can provide information about the suspects is asked to contact the police at 0228-150.

Orig. text: Dennis Scherer

Translation: ck

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