DOCTORS IN Leipzig were last night treating a man who used a gun to hold 20 people hostage in a Leipzig clothes store for three hours yesterday afternoon.
The 41-year-old man stormed into the women’s department of a H&M store in Leipzig city centre at 12.30 yesterday afternoon.
Eyewitnesses described him as agitated and visibly disturbed.
“I was standing at the cash register to pay, when suddenly a man popped up behind me with a gun,” said one young woman to MDR local television. “While he shouted ‘everybody quiet’ I managed to slip out.”
Minutes later a special police unit barricaded the pedestrianised Petersstrasse in Leipzig’s city centre and patrolled nearby streets in riot gear with machine guns.
Simultaneously, snipers spread out on to neighbouring buildings and special police negotiators made contact with the hostage-taker. Police helicopters were dispatched to circle overhead.
The man let a handful of hostages go during the afternoon. Then, around 3.30pm, six masked police officers wearing bullet-proof vests entered the store and, a short time later, the man gave himself up to police and released his 10 remaining hostages unharmed.
“Many of them emerged crying, completely exhausted by their ordeal,” said police spokesperson Anke Fittkau. “You could see the three hours of deathly angst in their faces.”
Police confirmed local media reports that the perpetrator, a chronically-ill Leipzig resident identified only as Oliver Q, carried out the hostage-taking because of an unnamed medical condition and growing frustration with the quality of treatment he was receiving.
A local tabloid newspaper claimed yesterday the man wanted to draw attention to a medical error by his doctor. The newspaper added that the man was known to police and had previous convictions for possession of unauthorised weapons.
Police declined to say yesterday whether the weapon the man used was real or an imitation.
After handing himself over to police, he was immediately taken into custody but, after less than an hour, he collapsed and was rushed to hospital.
The city centre was reopened shortly thereafter, though the clothes store remained off-limits and police gathered evidence.