Hours of police action in Bienenbüttel: local residents were startled by shots on Friday, in the end three people were dead. The police have a suspicion of how the deadly dispute came about.
Why did three people have to die in Bienenbüttel on Friday? Apparently, in the Lower Saxony community in the Uelzen district, an 85-year-old first killed his neighbors and then himself.
The residents of the 6,000-inhabitant community should still be stunned the day after – they first heard screams and shots around noon, and the police operation that followed lasted many hours. According to the “NDR”, some residents had to be accommodated in an emergency shelter by the fire brigade while the many emergency services combed the area. According to the regional portal “AZ-Online”, the last special forces only left the crime scene around 9 p.m.
According to the police, it was around 12:15 p.m. when residents in the Bargdorf district heard shots and screams and dialed the emergency call. This approached with a large contingent of emergency services and cordoned off the area over a large area. The scene of the crime was a large, confusing area consisting of two properties, partly wooded and covered with several buildings.
A dead man from Bienenbüttel was a hunter and legally owned several weapons
Forces of the Lüneburg mobile task force then found a dead man on one of the properties, an 85-year-old man. Since several firearms were approved for him as a person entitled to hunt, the officers acted with a high degree of caution, said the spokesman for the Lüneburg Police Inspectorate, Kai Richter, on Friday evening. In the course of the operation, the other two dead were then found.
According to initial findings, the 85-year-old owner of one property killed his neighbors, a 62-year-old and his 61-year-old wife. Then he is said to have killed himself. He is said to have “handled” firearms, said the police spokesman.
As the police said on Saturday, the exact connections between the events were still unclear. The background would still be determined. However, the police continue to assume that it was a neighborhood dispute that culminated in deadly violence on Friday. The investigators spoke of a “history” with disputes between the people. However, these did not escalate until that fateful Friday afternoon. According to research by the local portal “AZ-Online”, the dispute is said to have flared up again and again in the past and was also known to the police.
Because the area where the deadly shooting happened on Friday was so confusing, emergency services even used a drone on Friday, reports “AZ-Online”. The police also acted with a heavy armored car. When the situation was still unclear and the dead had not yet been found, the portal quoted police spokesman Kai Richter as saying that doors in two neighboring houses were opened with explosives in search of the suspect. The fear that there could also be explosive material on the 85-year-old’s property did not come true.
Both properties would be treated as crime scenes, police said on Saturday. On Friday evening, the police began securing evidence. Forensic doctors had also come from Hamburg. Now the experts are to reconstruct the exact course of the crime.
Sources: “AZ-Online”, NDR / with material from dpa
