"With an alarm like this, we always assume that it is an emergency," said Scholten. After the alarm was raised, the Bonn patrol police and the hundred-strong police force were on the scene within ten minutes, while special forces in Cologne set off at the same time. "The first ones on the scene provide a flow of information and assess the situation," he explains. It was quickly clear, he says, that it was a false alarm. "There was normal school activity in the rooms, a completely normal situation," says Scholten. It was only after the search, however, that the emergency forces on site could be sure.

The difference to the last amok alarm was that no announcement had been made by tape. The students of the comprehensive school were informed with an announcement and were able to observe the emergency forces on site. "As far as we know, the tape did not go off when the alarm was sounded," confirms Scholten. It has not yet been clarified why. "However, we were able to contact the secretariat safely and reliably and thus had a contact person."

At this stage, the cause of the alarm is not yet certain. "We have been confirmed that there was work on the equipment that triggered the alarm." It was probably a technical fault, he said. It is also not yet clear whether the system was triggered deliberately or accidentally. A total of ten patrol cars and a helicopter were on the scene. "The environment was difficult. You don't have much space in the city area, so a helicopter is helpful," Scholten said. Overall, he is satisfied with how the operation went. "There is always room for improvement, that is clear," says the police spokesman. But in his opinion, the procedure, the search and the aftercare went well.

And what effect do the amok alarms have on the pupils? "My children deal with the situations calmly," says Florian Stelter, chairman of the school council of Bonn's Fifth. "Hopefully, however, there will be no more mistakes or serious situations in the near future," says the chairman. Because these situations are not nice, he said. "Of course the children feel strange when they have to barricade themselves. My daughter was able to see the emergency services from the classroom," says the father. Now it would be nice if the mistakes were corrected. Overall, the school is acting very professionally in Stelter's view.

Deputy headmaster Dirk Schalaster also regrets that it was the second false alarm within a few weeks. However, he emphasises that he and the school had no influence on the triggering of the alarm. The last time, at the beginning of June, a technical defect caused a false alarm at Bonn's Fifth and triggered an amok alarm.

Original text: ga

Translation: Mareike Graepel