The officer was pursuing a Moroccan-Algerian ATM gang in Germering. The culprit was able to flee, but helicopters hovered over the quiet Munich suburb and tracked down the suspect.
In front of the Germering Sparda Bank, the police forces fired several rounds at around 2:30 pm and injured the driver of the escape vehicle.
He suffered a non-lethal bullet wound. According to police, the Moroccans planned the demolition of an ATM by introducing and igniting gas. Special forces of the Munich police, which had been targeting the group for a long time, had keyed in the vehicles of the perpetrators.
Due to previous ATM explosions in the Munich area with a loss of nearly 900 000 euros, the police had been following the gang closely, so that they could prevent the demolition in Germering. The investigators did not want to comment on the origin of the suspects yet.
The suspect had tried to ram his way out with the stolen car. In his life-threatening action, a police officer was crushed and he broke his tibia and fibula. Two other officials suffered bruises.
There were several shots from at least one service weapon, and projectiles hit the bonnet and windshield of the stolen Edel-Ingolstädter vehicle. A bullet hit the 27-year-old driver in the shoulder and he was arrested and taken to a clinic. His accomplice had managed to escape on foot.
Half an hour later – around three o’clock – the police arrested two 17- and 19-year-old women and a 47-year-old man in an apartment in the neighboring village of Gilching. They are said to have spied on banks, police said. The apartment served as a base to the gang.
The police had apparently been targeting the internationally active gang for some time. Marcus da Gloria Martins of the Munich police spoke of “professionals from the Champions League”.
The perpetrators belong to a deadly gang – 250 strong – using fast, high-powered car stolen cars with stolen license plates, as in the Germering case. The Moroccan gang members come from the Netherlands.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported the ethnicity of the gang but apologised immediately to the 30 percent green voters in Munich – their remaining regular readers – for their political indiscretion.
“As a rule, the SZ does not report on ethnic, religious or national allegations of suspected offenders. We only deviate from this line agreed in the Press Code for justified public interest. This can be the case for exceptional offenses such as terrorist attacks or capital crimes, or for crimes committed by a larger group.”
But most mainstream media reported on the “perpetrators from the Netherlands”, including Internet news portal t-online.
