COULD THE RAMPAGE HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?
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Police records: A few days before the crime, they were searching for Jens Rüther
Could the rampage by Jens Alexander Rüther (48) have been prevented? BILD has information that the perpetrator was already the focus of police attention days before his insane act. The authorities had already noticed Rüther before April 6 as mentally disturbed and suicidal.
Rüther is no blank slate for the authorities. In the past, he has been investigated for property damage, fraud and hit and run. But there was never a conviction. There was also a threat to his parents.
Already in 2015 and 2016, the amok driver made several appointments with the Social Psychiatric Service of the City of Münster, most recently on December 19, 2016, after which there were no further contacts.
Suddenly, only a few days before his amok drive, Jens Alexander Rüther behaved conspicuously again and worried the authorities.
March 27, 2018: Jens Alexander Rüther appears unannounced in the Social Psychiatric Service and hands over a multi-page document. He does not express suicidal intentions.
March 2018: An acquaintance and employee of the Social Psychiatric Service receives an email from Rüther in which he expresses suicidal intentions. The multi-page message is full of confused thought processes, but does not contain any information about a specific suicide action or a planned date.
March, 12.51 o'clock: On the same day a patrol car crew visits Jens Rüther's apartment in Münster at 12.51 o'clock. On the premises, the officers notice that the mailbox is overflowing and that a message is clearly visible on the front door of the apartment.
The note says: "I'm on my way, open the door at your own risk".
The police questioned the neighbors. They say they haven't seen Rüther for days.
Since it is known that he also owns apartments in the Dresden area, an apartment in Heidenau and an apartment in Pirna, the assignment is handed over to the officials there.
March 29, 3.37 p.m.: The colleagues in Saxony reported to the police in Münster that they had not found Rüther in Heidenau or Pirna. At one of the apartments, however, a VW Multivan with Münster license plates is discovered by the officers.
Nine days later, Rüther races into the innocent visitors of a beer garden with this vehicle.
March, 4 p.m.: Rüther appears at the Social Psychiatric Service and requires to speak with a certain employee. The man is on vacation, though. Rüther then hands over a multi-page document entitled "Lebensgeschichte" (Life Story) and leaves the building for an unknown destination. He is not stopped.
Brisant: There is no contact between the police and the Social Psychiatric Service at this time, although the investigation was initiated by a member of the Social Psychiatric Service. There is no further investigation of Rüther, there are no indications that his apartment in Münster will be checked again by the police.
April 4, 2018: Jens Alexander Rüther appears at 4 pm at a police station in Berlin. He brings charges against the doctors of the hospital in Münster, where he had spine surgery in 2015. He also made statements described as confused about other facts and persons.
The authorities will only find this out after the attack in the course of their investigations.
April 2018, 3.22 p.m.: Jens Alexander Rüther races with his VW-Bulli California into the outside terrace of the Münster restaurant Kiepenkerl, kills two people, injuring 32 people, some of them life-threatening. Still sitting in the vehicle, he shoots himself in his mouth with a firearm.
Where Rüther has been during the other days is as yet unknown to the authorities.
BBM