By a German socialist
On 19 May a woman - poor, homeless, African and drug-addicted - was shot and killed by police in a Frankfurt jobcentre.
This is a place where people are often treated as less than shit. The homeless woman had no bank account, which you can't get without a fixed address. She was told that benefits can only be transferred into a bank account (not true!) and that they could not give her money directly. She refused to leave the jobcentre without some money and started to complain loudly - so the office manager called the police. When they arrived and asked to see her passport, she pulled out a small pocket-knife instead. It is extremely difficult to hurt anyone with one of these! However, when she attacked one of the police officers, the other opened fire. The gunned down woman died after being taken to hospital.
This was not "a short in the legs", which is what police officers are supposed to be trained to do! In any case, how was it possible that several police and many office workers and others were unable to disarm one woman? Moreover, one eyewitness told me that the police rudely tried to forbid the witnesses from speaking with the media when they arrived. That says a lot! To me it looks like murder.
I would also ask why homeless people and drug addicts - who are often physically and psychologically damaged - are being dealt with within ordinary centres for the unemployed (where they can hardly defend themselves against a terrorising bureaucracy), instead of having dedicated social workers to take care of them.