"German police shot and killed 17 individuals in 2025 according to statistics published by the Institute for Civil Rights & Public Safety at Humboldt University in Berlin. The figure was lower than 2024, when a record 25 police killings were logged, yet well above decades-long averages. The high number, published on the institute's online magazine Civil Rights & Police, has amplified calls for police to be equipped with Tasers in order to provide a non-lethal option for them in threatening situations."
""Where no or only limited 'non-lethal' means of intervention can be used, firearms are the only proportionate means," said Kopelke. "Where Tasers are more readily available to the police, the use of service weapons is reduced.""
"This past October, lawmakers in Germany's Bundestag passed a legislative amendment to expand the list of equipment provided to federal police officers beyond their standard issue of truncheons and service pistols to include "distance electric pulse devices" that can deliver electric shocks from a short distanceand usually incapacitate a person."
German police shot and killed 17 individuals in 2025, fewer than the record 25 in 2024 but above long-term averages. The high tally has increased advocacy for Tasers as a non-lethal option for officers facing threatening situations. Special forces in all 16 states carry Tasers, while many local and state police do not, and several states are considering legislative changes. Baden-Wurttemberg recorded seven police-related fatal shootings in 2025, mostly by units without Tasers. Police union leadership argued that lack of non-lethal tools obliges the use of firearms and that wider Taser availability reduces service weapon use. The Bundestag amended federal police equipment rules to include distance electric pulse devices.
Read at www.dw.com
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