German cop convicted for gunshot in water fight at football match

A 28-year-old German police officer who fired his handgun during a water fight among colleagues outside a Bundesliga professional football match in the southern city of Augsburg was given a suspended sentence by a court on Thursday following a trial.

The court convicted the policeman of dangerous bodily harm in the line of duty and damage to property, and issued him a suspended sentence of one year and eight months. The policeman also faces the potential loss of his job and civil service status if the verdict is upheld on appeal.

The strange incident occurred outside an FC Augsburg Bundesliga match in August 2023.

Other police officers squirted the policeman and another colleague with a water pistol, and the pair tried to retaliate by sneaking up on their colleages' car with a rubber glove filled with water as well as a water pistol of their own.

"It was just for fun that day," the 28-year-old defendant said at trial.

But the policeman - for reasons that remained unclear - pulled out his service weapon and fired a shot, narrowly missing an officer in the car and breaking the window in a nearby parked bus for visiting Borussia Mönchengladbach fans.

The officers in the car were treated for blast trauma but were otherwise unhurt.

The policeman claimed at the start of the trial that he probably reacted reflexively due to the numerous shooting drills he'd taken part in as part of his training.

But the judges cast doubt on that claim.

The verdict is not yet final and may be appealed.

At trial, the defendant said that he could only remember seeing that one of the police officers in the car had a water pistol in his hand - then hearing a loud bang and seeing a colleague in the car staring at him with a look of horror and "as white as a sheet."

He could not remember firing the shot: "I didn't think anything because I wasn't even aware that I had the gun in my hand."

The defence had asked for a suspended sentence of one year, which would have allowed him a chance of possibly keeping his civil service status and continuing to work as a policeman, according to a spokesman for the court.

A sentence of more than a year includes the mandatory loss of civil service status, while there is more leeway for exceptions for shorter sentences.