German police have arrested two suspects in connection to the fatal shooting of two police officers during a traffic stop in the district of Kusel, although the motive behind the shootings is not yet clear.
Police say they arrested two individuals, a 32-year-old unidentified suspected and 38-year-old Andreas Johannes Schmitt, on Monday afternoon in connection to the fatal shooting that left two officers, a policewoman aged 24 and a male officer aged 29, dead in the early hours of Monday morning.
The shooting took place as the police officers were out on patrol in an unmarked car and pulled over a suspicious vehicle, finding the body of a game animal in the back of the vehicle. Shortly after radioing their colleagues, the police stated they were being shot at, Bild reports.
According to the newspaper, the 29-year-old officer managed to fire several shots before he was killed, while the female officer, who was still in training, was killed before she could unholster her weapon and died immediately at the scene.
Following a large-scale manhunt, police were able to locate the two suspects and noted that 38-year-old Mr Schmnitt was in possession of a firearms permit and worked as a seller of wild game.
So far, no motive is known regarding the shooting of the two officers and police are not ruling out the possibility of other suspects being involved in the shooting.
“Regardless of the motive behind the crime: This act is reminiscent of an execution, and it shows that police officers risk their lives every day for our security,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a member of the Social Democrats (SPD), said following the shootings.
Sabine Kunz, Rhineland Palatinate state chairwoman of the GdP police union, commented on the shootings saying, “Our thoughts are with the relatives of those killed and also with our colleagues. We are currently living every officer’s nightmare.”
The shooting comes just a week after a gunman in the city of Heidelberg opened fire during a lecture at the city’s university, injuring three people and killing one before allegedly killing himself.
While the suspect, identified as 18-year-old Nikolai G., is believed to have had previous ties to the far-right group Dritte Weg (Third Way), a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Heidelberg told German media last week there was no evidence that the shooting was politically motivated.