This was preceded by a family dispute in a house, the Eisenstadt public prosecutor confirmed to the APA. The attacker who was killed was a 55-year-old German citizen who lived in Bad Sauerbrunn.
Police officers went to the home address because of the argument. When they arrived there, the suspected perpetrator attacked them. A police officer suffered injuries of an unspecified degree even though he was wearing a protective vest. The attacker was hit by fatal shots, said public prosecutor’s spokeswoman Petra Bauer: “The suspected perpetrator is dead.”
Police officer was injured in attack
The whole thing happened around 2:30 p.m. in the health resort in the Mattersburg district. When the officers were on the scene, the man first threatened his wife with a machete and then attacked the police officers. One of them was injured. The extent of the injury was not yet known, but there was no danger to life, explained Bauer. Information regarding the age and origin of the threatened woman was not yet available.
In a broadcast from the Burgenland State Police Directorate in the evening, it was said that the police officers who intervened initially asked the attacker to put down the weapon and cooperate. However, the man ignored this and the use of pepper spray had no effect. When the suspect attacked the officers, the first responders fired a shot from their service weapon. The attacker was stopped, the rescue chain was activated, but the man died.
Investigations are underway
The use of weapons – in particular the number of shots fired, the number of service weapons used and the number of hits on the attacker’s body – are now the subject of the investigation. As planned, these will be managed by officers from the Vienna State Criminal Police Office. These internal investigations run parallel to the public prosecutor’s investigation, it said.
Bad Sauerbrunner Mayor Gerhard Hutter (LIBS) told the APA that he found out regarding the incident from the media – following hearing police sirens and a helicopter. He didn’t have any further information yet. The family dispute and the fatal shot occurred in a residential area near the health center.
