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FRANKFURT: Two German police officers were shot dead on Monday after pulling over a car during a routine traffic stop, prompting police to launch a major manhunt.
The shooting happened at around 4:20am in the Kusel district of western Rhineland-Palatinate state during a routine patrol. A 24-year-old female police officer and her 29-year-old male colleague were killed.
The young woman was still in police training, according to Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Roger Lewentz.
“We are urgently searching for the fugitive perpetrators,” Westpfalz regional police said in a statement.
“At least one of the suspects is armed,” they warned, urging residents not to pick up hitchhikers. The shooting occurred on a small country road surrounded by forests and fields, a regional police spokesman told Welt TV.
The two officers managed to report that shots had been fired but radio contact was lost shortly afterwards, he said.