Two police officers have been shot dead while on a routine patrol in western Germany, reports say.
The officers were making a traffic check near Kusel at about 4:20am when the shooting happened, according to a statement from police in Kaiserslautern.
The perpetrators fled from the scene and at first police said that they had no description of them, no details of what car they used or which direction they fled in.
They have since announced that they are searching for Andreas Johannes Schmitt, a 38-year-old man from the nearby town of Spiesen-Elversberg in the neighbouring state of Saarland, in connection with the shooting. They warned the public to stay away if they saw him, and asked drivers in the Kusel area not to pick up hitchhikers. Helicopters and sniffer dogs have been employed in their search.
The officers, a 24-year-old woman and a 29-year-old man, were able to radio for assistance but reinforcements were unable to help them when they arrived.
“Our colleagues announced over the radio that they were checking a vehicle,” Christina Erfort, of the West Palatinate police force told German news. “Shortly afterwards they said shots had been fired. Our colleagues then found both of them wounded or dead. We assume there are several suspects.” It has been reported that the younger officer was still studying at a police academy.
A spokesperson told the German newspaper Der Spiegel: “The colleagues are affected, everyone knows each other, the West Palatinate is not particularly large.”
One of Germany’s major police unions, the GdP, said it was “deeply shocked by the violent deaths of our colleagues”.
“Our thoughts are with the relatives of those killed and also with our colleagues. We are currently living every officer’s nightmare for real,” Rhineland Palatinate state chairwoman of the union Sabine Kunz said in a statement. “Hopefully the perpetrator or perpetrators can be apprehended quickly, so that potential danger to the wider population is averted.”
Germany’s interior minister Nancy Faeser tweeted: “Regardless of the motive, this crime is reminiscent of an execution and shows that the police risk their lives for our security every day.”
