Osnabruck
Young people with airsoft guns trigger a large-scale police operation
Heavily armed emergency services at a school in Osnabrück. photo
© -/NMW-TV/dpa
Excitement surrounding a school in Osnabrück. Numerous emergency services are deployed and there are warnings to avoid the area. A short time later there was the all-clear and information about arrests.
After the end of use they take effect Police and rescue workers on the school grounds in Osnabrück’s Sonnenhügel district are almost a little lost among the hundreds of children and young people streaming out of the buildings onto the street. The mood is relaxed on this Thursday afternoon, many students are laughing.
An hour earlier, they had to remain in their classrooms because of a possible threat: witnesses had seen a person with a firearm on the premises. At midday the police arrested two 14-year-olds who were carrying an airsoft gun. After the all-clear, everyone breathed a sigh of relief: students, parents – and also the police.
At around 11 a.m. the police were reported to be walking around the school grounds with a firearm. Officials quickly cordoned off not only the school grounds, but also several streets in the area. Using the short message platform X – formerly Twitter – the police called on people to avoid the area.
Special forces on site
Students had to stay in their classrooms. Police support staff came to the schools. According to police spokesman Jannis Gervelmeyer, it was a high school and a special school. The police also set up a contact point for concerned parents. Initially only police officers had access to the school grounds. Special forces came to the school center not only from Osnabrück, but also from other cities in Lower Saxony. A police helicopter circled over the area.
Officers searched the buildings. But the only people who spotted them were the two teenagers with the airsoft gun. No other person was found with a weapon, said Gervelmeyer. The operation was then ended. “We have searched everything, there is no longer any danger, and we are now finished here,” Gervelmeyer said at 2 p.m. He didn’t have any figures on how many students and teachers were in the schools.
There is great relief in the city
What happens next with the two 14-year-olds will only be clarified in the next few days, said the police spokesman. The background, both criminal and motive, would be determined in the next few days. “No one was injured,” said Gervelmeyer. However, at the age of 14, both young people are already of criminal responsibility.
There was great relief in Osnabrück that in the end it wasn’t a shooting or a hostage-taking. Corresponding rumors had quickly made the rounds at midday. “I am very relieved that the situation in the Sonnenhügel district has eased again and, above all, that no one was injured,” said Mayor Katharina Pötter (CDU), who thanked the emergency services for their “quick and prudent action”. Pötter promised that schools should receive all the help they need from the city so that students, parents and teachers can process what they have experienced quickly.
Just a few hours earlier there was a similar operation at a school in Braunschweig. After receiving information that a bomb might have been planted there, fire and police forces responded. As the officials said, it quickly became clear on site that there was no real threat. Nevertheless, the school was evacuated to rule out any possible danger. A total of 75 people were taken to a nearby church and cared for. Explosive detection dogs searched the school but found no bomb. The police now want to investigate the background.