The wild chase ended at the Sinsheim-Steinsfurt motorway junction. Symbol photo: Christian Beck
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By Tim Kegel
Sinsheim / Kraichgau. A rapid 25 minutes on Autobahn 6 and a chase with consequences, in which even shots were fired at a roadblock. The case on a July night this year, which caused a stir at the time, was heard in the district court on Tuesday.
The presentation of the complex crime structure alone lasted five minutes. Around two o’clock in the night, the defendant drove past a police patrol at Hockenheim, intoxicated after a joint, whipped up with amphetamines and with a stolen license plate, which after a routine query aroused the attention of the police. At Rauenberg they had caught up with the man from Worms, drew attention to themselves with the “Please follow” sign, later with a flashing light, and later still with the horn fully turned up. Apparently none of this helped. The man no longer has a driver’s license.
What came next developed into a chase the likes of which are not often seen in the region: the police driver tried to overtake several times and was then pushed off the Passat; once between Sinsheim and Bad Rappenau. Another time after the Passat had left the autobahn there, raced over a traffic light when it was red, was thrown into a beet field and “miraculously” made it back onto the road and then onto the autobahn.
Bump number three then in the opposite direction, just before the farm forest rest area. There the fugitive raced past a 40-ton truck on the right. “We had to avoid him turning into the rest area,” said the official, because he believes that “would have been a massacre at the rate”. So he tried to pass over the hard shoulder on the right. The vehicles touched again. The policeman, who was traveling with a police student as a passenger, speaks of “deliberate steering movements”, probably to damage the patrol car and thereby escape arrest. The wild chase took place at speeds between 100 and 190 km / h, even in narrow construction site sections.
It ended at the Steinsfurt motorway exit. The reinforcements from the Sinsheim police station had parked a police bus across the road. The Eppingen police were on their way there. When the radio traffic collapsed, a colleague from Sinsheim shot his pistol four times in the air – legitimate “signal shots”, as he called it.
The effect of the volley was that the fugitive and his co-driver – a 37-year-old and a 32-year-old – but also the police colleagues were frightened: The fugitives got out and lay down – more or less immediately – the ground. The pursuers took cover, assuming they would be shot at now. When the Passat was searched, 53.7 grams of amphetamine were found. The suspect wanted to slip a bag with 0.24 grams of cocaine and a forbidden brass knuckles out of his pocket in the hustle and bustle – but one of the Sinsheim police officers spotted this.
It took a long time to read out the police and fitness to drive register excerpt with 14 and 12 entries respectively, back to 2007. Again and again the man was on the road without a driver’s license, there are numerous, sometimes serious, robbery, drug, stolen goods, fraudulent and traffic offenses on file. The man – a parts fitter by profession – had previously been briefly imprisoned twice. For the third time he is currently in the Mannheim correctional facility.
A judgment is still pending. After hours of negotiation, the defendant’s defense lawyer had requested that the damage to the vehicles be examined by means of a further expert opinion. This should show that the accused did not intentionally ram the patrol car, but only touched the cars lightly. The lawyer had previously questioned the police officer with extreme stubbornness: For an hour and a half it was about meticulous details of the journey.
An expert opinion from forensic medicine makes people sit up and take notice: It says that the accused – who remains silent on the allegations – “has no evidence of a significant impairment of control and action competence”; So, despite drug consumption, he could still act – and drive – with a sufficiently clear head. The next hearing is on December 2nd, 10 a.m.
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