Anti-mask backlash feared after Germany killing
Gas station clerk believed shot to death for refusing to serve man who would not follow COVID protocols
Senior officials in Germany expressed shock Tuesday over the killing of a young gas station clerk who was shot dead on the weekend by a man opposed to the country’s pandemic restrictions.
A 49-year-old German was arrested in the fatal shooting of the clerk Saturday in the western town of Idar-Oberstein. The suspect is being held on suspicion of murder.
Authorities said the man told officers he acted “out of anger” after being refused service by the clerk for not wearing a mask while trying to buy beer at the gas station.
“He further stated during interrogation that he rejected the measures against the coronavirus,” the Trier police department said in a statement.
A requirement to wear masks in stores is among the measures in place in Germany to stop the spread of the virus.
“I’m deeply shocked,” said Malu Dreyer, the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state. “My thoughts are with the family and friends of the victim.”
Dreyer called for the killing to be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrator punished.
According to police, the suspect left the gas station after the dispute but then returned a half-hour later wearing a mask and fatally shot the 20-year-old clerk in the head.
The suspect, a German citizen named in local media as Mario N., initially fled the scene. After a large-scale manhunt was called, he turned himself in to police Sunday morning.
One of the candidates to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in next Sunday’s German election also voiced dismay at the killing. “I’m shaken by this terrible murder of a young man who merely asked that existing rules be followed,” Annalena Baerbock of the centre-left Green party said in a tweet.
She warned of the growing radicalization of Germany’s Querdenken movement, which includes people who oppose masks and vaccines, conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists.
Authorities would not immediately say whether the suspect was associated with that movement.
The movement has come under increasing scrutiny from Germany’s security services following a series of large antigovernment protests, some of which turned violent.