The shooting

On Thursday afternoon a 60-year-old hunter and sport shooter is suspected of shooting two employees of the Neumarkt district office (Landratsamt) in Berngau, a village of about 2,600 residents in the Neumarkt district of Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz). The two were checking whether he stored his firearms properly during a routine inspection. The office said such checks cover all holders of weapon ownership cards, and that no concrete suspicion existed against the man. According to most reports the victims were a 45-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman, though one report swaps their ages. Officers found the man lifeless on the ground in front of a white house, while the woman's body was found later inside the building. Investigators assume she died during the first shots, which the position of her body supports.

Standoff and arrest

Witnesses called police and rescue services shortly after 14:00 to report gunshots, and a large operation followed that lasted far into the night. Police surrounded the house with a special operations unit, an armored vehicle and a helicopter, and asked residents to stay indoors. According to Bild, citing unconfirmed reports, the gunman phoned the police himself. For hours officers talked to him and tried to persuade him to surrender, but he insisted he would not give up without resistance.

Around 3 a.m. on Friday special forces stormed the house, and Bavaria's interior minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) said a targeted shot to the leg stopped the suspect. Police said explosives were used in the raid. Police first spoke of light leg injuries but later said the 60-year-old was seriously injured, and he was taken to hospital under guard for treatment.

Motive and suspect

At a press conference in Oberschleißheim on Friday morning, Herrmann said the suspect had not come to police attention before and that neither state security nor the domestic intelligence service held findings on him. No indications of an extremist mindset have emerged so far, and Herrmann called it 'completely inexplicable' why the situation came about. Investigators are checking in all directions, including whether the man had past contact with the Neumarkt district office. The weapons register lists ten guns legally held by the 60-year-old, and whether he had illegal weapons is still under investigation. Mayor Thomas Meier said the man was barely integrated in the village and was not active in clubs, groups or the local shooting club.

Community and gun checks

Mayor Thomas Meier told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the village was deeply affected and that residents showed great sympathy for the victims' families. A crisis team is supporting pupils at the local school.

“The sense of shock is enormous.”

Herrmann put the checks in context: more than 200,000 weapon owners live in Bavaria, each is checked on average about every three years, and around 60,000 such checks take place each year. He said there had not been even a hint of such incidents in past checks. He also said the case was not comparable to a fatal operation in Georgensgmünd about ten years earlier.

Weapon owners in Bavaria (more than)200,000

Routine checks per year in Bavaria (around)60,000

Weapon owners in Bavaria (more than)

200000

Routine checks per year in Bavaria (around)

60000

Data from the article text

Autopsies and a forensic examination of the scene took place on Friday, and the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office is examining whether the police shots were lawful, as is usual in such cases. The suspect is to be questioned after his medical treatment and brought before an investigating judge.