Murders happen every day around the world, but it’s still scary to see a murder in a place you know and frequent. A close-range murder at Frankfurt’s main train station shows that even Germany’s financial center is not immune to gun violence.
Murder at Frankfurt Central Station
The incident occurred on Tuesday evening on a busy train platform… a platform I often stood on when I lived in Frankfurt for almost two years. From this terminus you can reach much of Europe…
However, the 27-year-old victim, who was standing on platform 9 at around 9 p.m., was unable to leave the station. Instead, he was shot at point blank range by a 54-year-old man. Everything was clearly captured on video footage. I won’t embed or link to these footages here, but they’re pretty easy to find.
The victim died instantly, while the man was quickly arrested after attempting to escape. No motive has yet been attributed to the murderer, although both men were Turkish citizens.
The station remained closed for only 25 minutes while the police searched for and found the murder weapon (a pistol).
Murders happen every day and they are not a common headline in the news Live and let us flyBut this murder shatters my naive idealization of Frankfurt as a place where I never had to worry about gun violence and could feel safe even in the middle of the night.
And for heaven’s sake, don’t make any reference to how bad things are in the US. I’ve complained about US gun laws here before, and my point here isn’t to make a comparative argument (yes, statistically you’re much less safe in almost any US city), just to note that murder seems a little different when it happens in a place you know very well.
Here is a picture I took in 2015 on platform 9 at FRA HbF
As I always say when I share bad news: Life is short and life is sweet. You never know when you might be in the crosshairs of violence. Always stay alert, even in Frankfurt. My condolences to the family of the deceased.
