A twelve-year-old girl was seriously injured by one or more service weapon shots during a police operation in Bochum. The deaf girl, who had been missing from the neighborhood for a day, had previously approached officers with two knives when she saw police, police and public prosecutors said.
The girl is dependent on essential medication. After his caretaker at a residential group reported him missing on Sunday, a major effort was made to search for him.
On Monday evening there were indications that the twelve-year-old may have been in the apartment of his mother, who is also deaf, in the Hamme district of Bochum.
The twelve year old was taken to hospital
Shortly after midnight, emergency services arrived at the apartment building. Investigators said officers heard voices coming from inside the apartment, but the door was not opened. Not even an hour later mother opened the door.
“While clarifying the truth and searching the apartment, emergency services encountered a 12-year-old child who approached police officers with two knives in his hands,” the police office and prosecutor’s office said. To ward off the impending attack, one of the officers used his electrical impulse device and the other fired with his service weapon.
Police officers provided first aid until emergency services arrived. An emergency doctor then took the twelve-year-old to a nearby hospital. He was operated on there and, according to doctors, his life was in danger, a police spokesman said.
How many shots officers fired remains under investigation, the spokesman said. How the communication between the deaf mother and the deaf girl at the location takes place is also still being clarified.
A twelve year old should not be allowed to stay in his mother’s apartment like that. The mother had previously been stripped of parental rights and her right to decide where the girl lived, investigators said.
