Two German police officers shot dead during traffic check

FRANKFURT: Two German police officers were shot dead on Monday after pulling over a car during a routine traffic stop, prompting the police to launch a major manhunt.

The shooting occurred at around 4:20 am (0320 GMT) in the Kusel district of western Rhineland-Palatinate state during a routine patrol, in which 24-year-old female police officer and her 29-year-old male colleague were killed.

The young woman was still in police training, according to Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Roger Lewentz. “We are urgently searching for the fugitive perpetrators,” Westpfalz regional police said in a statement.

“At least one of the suspects is armed,” they warned, urging the residents not to pick up hitchhikers. The shooting occurred on a small country road surrounded by forests and fields, a regional police spokesman said. The two officers managed to report that shots had been fired but the radio contact was lost shortly afterwards, he added. Backup police then arrived at the scene and found one officer dead and the other fatally injured.