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Kreuzberg, Boxing Day, shortly before four in the morning on Saturday: Residents of Stresemannstrasse, in the immediate vicinity of the SPD party headquarters, hear several shots that alert the police. Later, four men are seriously injured in the hospital, the prosecutor speaks of a “shooting in the environment of organized crime.”
Police forces initially found three wounded men at an entrance gate on Stresemannstrasse. Numerous officers, some equipped with machine guns, cordoned off the area and searched the area for the perpetrators. A police helicopter flew over Kreuzberg. Before rescuers could enter, the area had to be secured first.
Police wanted to rule out more shots. Forensics were also unable to go to the scene immediately. Police technicians are said to have found cartridges. Bullet holes were seen in several doors. The fire department was also on the scene with a large number, several ambulances, three emergency medics and a senior emergency physician.
Police officers also searched the area around the Möckernbrücke metro station. With flashlights they scanned the undergrowth of the bank area. There they found a fourth wounded. According to initial findings, he had jumped into the Landwehr Canal and rescuers pulled him out of the water.
The four injured, two aged 30 and one aged 39 and 42, have been transferred to hospitals for treatment. There they must continue to be treated initially as inpatients.
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The 1st Murder Commission of the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) has taken up the case and is being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder. According to information from Tagesspiegel, both the perpetrators and the victims are said to be among the four injured men. The police and the prosecutor initially did not want to provide further information.
Investigators are confident they can clear up the case quickly: the evidence is not bad, according to the prosecutor. He now also checks whether arrest warrants can be requested against various suspects in court. They were the usual suspects, he told himself. There is also speculation about disputes in the clan environment.
As for the details, if the four men are suspects and if the four injured were involved in the shooting, the Public Ministry spokesman and the police were cautious: they were people who belonged to the group of four injured, he said.
The exact background is not yet known. Police did not initially comment on the question of whether multiple people fired shots. In the afternoon, heavily armed officers from the Special Operations Command (SEK) were on the scene and searched an apartment.
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In Berlin there are always clashes between individual groups or criminal members of large German-Arab families. More recently, after a 29-year-old was shot in Kreuzberg, there was an attack by about 10 men.
The 29-year-old clan member was shot in late November after an argument with another group on Mittenwalder Strasse, corner of Fürbringer Strasse. He was seriously injured and had to undergo emergency surgery. The perpetrators were able to escape.
Violence between members of two large families in Kreuzberg
A few days later, violent clashes broke out again between members of large families of Arab origin. Several relatives of the 29-year-old wounded have been attacked. The police spoke of “continuous attacks”.
Several men had smashed the window panes of a ground-floor apartment in Gneisenaustrasse with objects. The apartment is assigned to a relative of the 29-year-old. After the attack, the attackers are said to have escaped with various vehicles.
Officials found irritating baseball bats, knives and gasoline cans in a car stopped by police. Other relatives of the 29-year-old told police that strangers had damaged his car and fled.
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Finally, several people threatened a 71-year-old man, also a relative of the man who had been shot a few days earlier. They threatened him through the closed door and over the phone. What the dispute was about was still unclear. The police union (GdP) suspects a fight for the influence of organized crime behind the attacks.
In February, a shooting at Berlin’s Tempodrom on Möckernstrasse, not far from the current crime scene, caused a sensation with one dead and four injured. An arrest warrant for involuntary manslaughter was issued against a 48-year-old man who reportedly shot a 42-year-old man and was seriously injured in the confrontation.
Also in this case, the investigators assume a conflict between clans. It should have been about territorial disputes between two competing families. (with dpa)
