We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
A YOUNG PETROL station worker in Germany has been killed after asking a customer to wear a face mask.
A 49-year-old man was arrested in the western town of Idar-Oberstein and is being held on suspicion of murder.
Senior politicians in Germany have warned against the radicalisation of people who oppose pandemic restrictions.
Authorities said the man told officers he acted “out of anger” after being refused service for not wearing a mask while trying to buy beer.
“He further stated during interrogation that he rejected the measures against the coronavirus,” the Trier police department said in a statement.
A requirement to wear masks in stores is among the measures in place in Germany to stop the spread of the virus.
According to police, the suspect left after the dispute but returned half an hour later wearing a mask and fatally shot the 20-year-old clerk in the head.
The suspect, a German citizen who wasn’t identified by name in line with privacy laws, fled the scene but later turned himself in to police.
The centre-left Green party’s candidate to succeed German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced dismay at the killing. Germany’s federal election takes place on Sunday.
“I’m shaken by this terrible murder of a young man who merely asked that existing rules be followed,” Annalena Baerbock said in a tweet.
Baerbock also expressed concern about the radicalisation of Germany’s Querdenken movement, which includes people who oppose masks and vaccines, conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists.
Authorities didn’t immediately say whether the suspect in the killing was associated with the movement, which has come under scrutiny from Germany’s security services following a series of anti-government protests, some of which turned violent.
Prosecutors told Germany’s DPA news agency that the man wasn’t previously known to police and that he wasn’t legally entitled to own the firearm found at his house.
Paul Ziemiak, the general secretary of Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union party, called the young man’s killing “incomprehensible.”
Facebook last week removed almost 150 accounts and pages linked to the Querdenken movement under a new policy focused on groups that spread misinformation or incite violence but which didn’t fit into the platform’s existing categories of bad actors.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I love wearing my mask it helps to keep the Covid and flu away and also stops people recognising me when I go shopping.
@Fred Fender: Agreed about the illness protection, but alas, everyone knows I’m the only walking scarecrow in the town
Misplaced a comma there. Apologies
@JusticeForJoe: Nob
@JusticeForJoe: nobody noticed
@Robert Clifford: Sorry itchy finger.
@Robert Clifford: Well played, sir!
@Fred Fender: or shoplifting?
@JusticeForJoe: hope you find it soon. A comma is handy to have to hand.
This doesn’t surprise me, but disgusts me hugely. I have seen low wage workers being physically and verbally assaulted for merely doing their job and asking members of the public to obey the rules. Open to everyone and everything, there is little to no protection. Think of this the next time you decide to take your mood out on waitstaff, bar staff, retail assistants and other public-facing low wage workers.
RIP. Desperately sad.
@Carol Conway: Always happens and got worse during lockdown for retail workers.
Murdered for just doing his job. Tragic.
The fact that he had a half hour to walk away and cool down, but instead choose to return and murder a person is sickening. He should never see the light of day again.
This is horrific news. There will be a lot of incidents, and some will be nasty, as governments refuse to take the hard step of making mask wearing compulsory in any place that has risks attached. Leaving it up to peoples common sense is not using common sense.
@JG: Exactly. It’s political cowardice in the extreme.
Friends and family left devastate because of an individual with a lack of basic intelligence. RIP to the poor chap.
That’s shocking, looking to buy beer might signal that he may have already been under the influence but he went away & came back 30 mins later so plenty time to cool down. Some of these anti vaccine save the words are beauts. I know that locally I’d never heard of these people & once covid hit they seem to come out of the woodwork to save everyone. I’d wish they became ominous again & not attention seeking nobodies.
We’re far too tolerant and accommodating on far right extremists in this country, I fear it’s only a matter of time before we see an incident like this here as well.
As usual it’ll be the ordinary low paid worker on the firing line.
@Rochelle: if anything we are not tolerant of the far right, we are one of the few European countries without a far right party. There are a few individuals here but generally they are ignored or ridiculed.
Long may it last!
This is so terrible, imagine a) going to work in a petrol station and being murdered during the course of your day and b) being angry enough about being asked to wear a mask for a few minutes that you would murder someone and now likely spend years in prison rather than wear a mask.
I was shouted at by a total stranger in centra last week for having a mask on my 5 year old. I was so taken aback I didnt manage to get any words out.
@Sarah Lou: It’s really best not to engage with people like that at all, if someone is deranged enough to publicly harass a mother protecting her child like that then you don’t know what they’re likely to do when challenged.
@Rochelle: very true, she was prob in her 60′s in a small supermarket in a small town, very surreal event. The story here is just so shocking and really really sad. what has happened to society.
@Sarah Lou: I commend you for having your 5 year old wear a mask. Frankly all kids attending junior school and above should be wearing masks. It also gets to me that some parents now decide that the supermarket is now nothing more than a social outlet and the whole family goes now with all kids walking and shouting their way around the store. Little Johnny and Annie are the ones most likely to be spreading it now, just lucky they don’t suffer too much. The number of kids being tested now supports this view
@Sarah Lou: ditto . Was attacked in Gatwick airport this weekend by a drunk guy about my seven year old wearing one.
@Aisling Boyle: that is terrible. Wonder is it a “thing” at present? I mean she was apparently advocating for the child and as per her I was harming him but in reality she was scaring him. All I can say is at least he was drunk, one hopes sober he wouldnt do it but terrible for the kids who are just doing what they are told.
The Internet is full of anti Vaxxer sentiment this incident is shocking but the longer the world is in lockdown the more these groups emerge.
Absolutely shocking. The poor lad and his family.
If the perpetrator went to get a gun, that’s premeditated murder right there, and he should fry.
@Teresa O’Halloran: and I’ll supply the rashers.
@Teresa O’Halloran: Yes he should fry for premeditated murder but the far left would go nuts and organise rallies for him.
It’s strange anti-vax/mask has become associated with the far-right. Traditionally there’s been a lot of left-wing crystal-healing-hippie types that have been anti-vax.
Also, the irony of him coming back with a mask to commit the murder. The journal blocked my first attempt at what I think of him.
He can reflect at leisure while in prison. RIP to his victim.
This is what happens when the mentally ill eventually snap. He has been anti masker a while and it was building. We have our own very extreme right wing anti maskers they have a group with well over 1k on telegram. Bringbacknormal.ie have a look. Very extremist. Only matter of time before they act out here and someone gets hurt.
I think the world has officially gone mad. Where does this madness end?
Always said people who work in Petrol stations should be behind bulletproof glass in case of shootings or stabbings. In America they have these in place already in most stations and I know they have a gun culture etc but with the rising amount of nutcases on drugs and total lunatics out there it should become law that these are installed to protect staff.
@paul mccoy: I don’t disagree at all but it’s not practical, unfortunately…you would only be able to do work on the floor when the shop is closed if that was the case so no stock-taking, no cleaning the coffee machine, no stocking the shelves etc.
Murdered by someone who didn’t want to be told what to do. He’s going to spend his life being told what to do and when he can do it now.
Absolutly tragic. I hope the murderer spends the rest of his life in prison.
Ask yourselves this why oh why do Wealthy Multinational Petrol Stations Pay such Low Wages Boycott the Greedy Leeches….
My god, the comments on the Facebook page are horrendous. Some sick puppies iut there
A young man killed because he did his job. Seriously horrible. The killer will hopefully get life, which is at least 25 years in Germany, in prison. No mask killed a person yet, but these anti-maskers are willing to, it seems.
have your say