Four years ago, police officer Benedict Brunner* was attacked with a knife while on duty. Unlike his colleague Rouven L. in Mannheim, he was lucky and remained unharmed. Here he describes how he experienced the incident and what helped him to deal with the trauma.
The policeman Benedict Brunner* (28, name changed by the editors) has been a police commissioner for three years. Four years ago he was the victim of a knife attack. At the time, Brunner was still studying at the police academy and was doing an internship.
It happened on the second to last day of my internship at a small office. Shortly before the end of the shift, we received a call: A man informed us that his stepson was causing trouble in the apartment. Together with my internship supervisor, we drove to the address provided with blue lights and sirens.
“When you come in, things are going crazy here”
When we arrived, the stepfather was standing at the front door and gave us a rough update on what had happened. His stepson, a man in his early twenties, had barricaded himself in the apartment and was screaming. We went to the apartment, identified ourselves as police officers and tried to communicate with the rioter through the closed door. He screamed: “If you come in, things will go crazy.” You could hear that he was in a state of emergency.
I asked the stepfather what his son’s first name was. When I asked him about it, he seemed to calm down a little. I asked him to open the door so we could talk. My supervisor was standing right at the door, I was half a meter behind him. The man opened it a little. I pushed the door open. He backed away a little, I was standing about one and a half meters away from him. At that moment I saw him reach into a box on the right, pull out a knife with a blade about 15 centimeters long and aim it at my neck.
I had to reconstruct the events that followed later. I was so full of adrenaline at that moment that I reacted automatically. I pulled out my gun and yelled “Knife! Knife!” That’s what we had learned in training. My patrol partner also pulled out his gun.
“Why didn’t you shoot me?”
Then something strange happened that no operational trainer or psychologist has been able to explain to me to this day. At the moment when we both aimed our weapons at the rioter and he looked down the barrel of our weapon, something in his body language signaled to us that he was not going to attack. We knew: We didn’t have to shoot. We both had our fingers on the trigger, but we didn’t pull the trigger.
Flowers at the crime scene in Mannheim, where on Friday an Islamist attacker injured police officer Rouven L. so badly that he died of the consequences on Sunday.
© epd / Imago Images
My colleague shouted: “Put the knife down, put the knife down!” In fact, the man took a half step to the right and put the knife down. My colleague shouted at him to lie down on the ground. When he didn’t, we pushed him down, handcuffed him. He just said: “Why didn’t you shoot me?”
We then took him to the police station. I have no memory of the patrol car ride. The man later said during his interrogation that I had told him in tears in the patrol car that he was the reason why I had to point a gun at someone for the first time.
When we arrived, our colleagues took the man away from us without saying a word. We filed a complaint about the attack. It later emerged that he was suffering from psychosis and had felt threatened.
I went to my patrol partner’s office and cried for half an hour. After that, the automatic processes kicked in. My station manager came to the station and informed my emergency contact, my father, and two police psychologists. They arrived after 45 minutes and spoke to me for a long time.
They said that in such dangerous situations the brain suddenly goes to 100 percent and then needs time to shut down again. My partner and I were unable to think clearly for hours. Thanks to the conversation with the psychologists, I was able to sort out the events.
My partner and I had a collegial, professional relationship before the deployment. Since then, he has been one of my best friends.
My father came too, as did my entire service group, even those who were actually off duty. They sat with me long after work was over, we talked to each other about things, it was about the feeling of being there for each other. I will never forget that from my colleagues.
My partner and I had a collegial, professional relationship before the dramatic mission. Since then, he has been one of my best friends.
The next morning we went back to work so that fear wouldn’t take hold. It was the right decision. The incident weighed heavily on me for two or three weeks. I slept badly and woke up in the middle of the night. When we were on duty with blue lights on, the images came back.
When I returned to my studies, my operational trainer gave me individual shooting lessons. He never said it out loud, but I think he wanted to help me avoid developing a shooting block in an acutely dangerous situation. We also talked about the incident. All of this helped me to process it.
Today, I don’t feel particularly stressed by the incident. I’m also not afraid when I’m on duty. But if I know that knives or other dangerous objects are involved, I might be a little more alert.
I watched the video of the knife attack in Mannheim. It reminded me of my own experience, even though the context was different. I can understand how the colleagues on site must have felt.
The news of my colleague’s death shocked me. Fortunately, police officers do not die in the line of duty as often in Germany as in other countries such as the USA. But incidents such as the one in Mannheim or the case in Kusel, where two poachers murdered two police officers, mean that we are all a little more aware of the dangers in our profession.
What bothers me about the public debate is that there is a lot of talk about the attacked Islam critic Stürzenberger and the origins of the perpetrator, but very little about the fact that a police officer died who gave his life for society.
I still love my job
I would like us to talk more about violence against emergency personnel. Not just about knife attacks. A year ago, I was injured during an operation by a rioter, a drug addict who beat me. It feels like the streets are becoming more dangerous for us too.
I still love my job. I’m happy that I can help people. That’s what drives me. Sometimes you just bring your confused grandma home and then you’re happy for the rest of the day. Even if you don’t make it into the news.