The State Criminal Police Office of Upper Austria has taken over the investigation, according to a police release.
At around 3:00 p.m., the police officer took part in an exercise in the basement, where the on-call unit (BE) is currently housed. A shot may have been fired for reasons that have not yet been clarified. The projectile hit the 27-year-old. Officials and a police doctor intervened immediately, but the alarmed paramedics and the emergency doctor were no longer able to help the officer. Relatives and colleagues are now being looked after by the crisis intervention team.
The investigation began in the afternoon. As usual, these will be taken over by another federal state. The public prosecutor’s office in Graz and an expert on firearms were already at the scene of the accident for a local inspection. According to initial investigations, the police officer was still involved in a search for a confused pensioner in the morning. After that, the decision had apparently been made at lunchtime for a practice session in the afternoon. The 27-year-old who died had started his two-year police training course in December 2019 and had been part of the on-call unit since early September.
Karner “deeply affected”
According to initial findings, the five-strong BE group, to which the 27-year-old belonged, had completed tactical training in the extensive corridors and rooms of the basement at the state police headquarters on Straßgangerstraße in the Wetzelsdorf district. “Something like this is done more often and is nothing out of the ordinary,” police spokesman Markus Lamb told APA. The shot went off in an “ordinary walk” in the basement. It is not yet clear from which gun the shot came. Therefore, the public prosecutor’s office seized all the pistols in question. These are forensically examined.
State police director Gerald Ortner was deeply affected in an initial reaction: “My deepest sympathy goes to the relatives and family of the young comrade at this hour.” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) said in a first reaction: “The tragic, terrible death of the young police officer in Styria today affects me deeply. In these difficult hours, my thoughts are with the family and the bereaved, to whom I feel deeply I express my condolences. The circumstances that led to the death of this young colleague must be fully and fully clarified together with the judiciary and the authorities.”
Source: Nachrichten
