GERMANY: Relatives of the 16 people gunned down in a German school shooting two years ago have filed charges claiming that at least five of the victims could have been saved were it not for police negligence.
The damning dossier alleges that police ignored cries for help from dying victims and that the time of death was later altered on death certificates.
The report was compiled by Mr Eric Langer, a lawyer representing the families of victims and who also lost his partner, an art teacher, in the shooting at the Gutenberg secondary school in the central German city of Erfurt on April 26th, 2002. The new claims come just weeks before the second anniversary of the morning when Robert Steinhäuser, a 19-year-old expelled student, arrived at his former school carrying two guns in his bag.
He walked down corridors and into classrooms shooting at students and teachers with cold-blooded efficiency, firing over 40 rounds in less than 15 minutes before killing himself.
Mr Langer's report says that "complete paralysis" reigned at the scene and that police sealed off the school for hours while victims lay dying inside. An emergency medic was sent into the school shortly after 11 a.m., something police inside only learned of 90 minutes later.
Eyewitnesses tell how Ms Birgit Dettke, Mr Langer's partner and an art teacher at the school, lay dying in the school yard near students and police officers.
Another teacher, "could be heard shouting and was seen at the window" for two hours after the shooting, the report says.
"A nearby police officer tried to keep his spirits up but could find neither a stretcher nor a medic." Students claim they asked police officers in vain to help physics teacher Mr Peter Wolff who, according to his post-mortem, "lived for at least another hour" after the shooting. The two students who died, a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy died two hours after the killing, according to their post-mortems. Mr Langer disputes the central claim of the official report into the shooting which states that "even with immediate emergency medical treatment, none of the victims would have had a chance of survival".
"We were horrified when the investigative committee simply said that everything was now explained. Everyone just patted each other on the back," said Mr Langer.
The local state prosecutor is studying the document and will respond "shortly" to the claims.