Death scene investigation and autopsy proceedings in identifying the victims of the terror attack on the Breitscheidplat
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CASE REPORT
Death scene investigation and autopsy proceedings in identifying the victims of the terror attack on the Breitscheidplatz in Berlin 19th December 2016 Claas Buschmann 1
&
Sven Hartwig 1 & Michael Tsokos 1 & Lars Oesterhelweg 1
Accepted: 16 June 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract We describe and discuss the forensic mission after the terrorist attack on the Breitscheidplatz in Berlin on 19th December 2016, focusing on co-operation with police authorities, and the injury patterns of the deceased. Even after massive blunt trauma, severe injury patterns are often unrecognizable by visual inspection of the body (“Casper’s sign”), which could instill false security among rescuers or, as happened on the Breitscheidplatz, may lead to distress or even trauma in rescue personnel when obviously primarily uninjured patients die suddenly. Keywords Forensic autopsy . Disaster victim identification (DVI) . Death scene investigation . Blunt trauma . Casper’s sign
Introduction On 19th December 2016 at 08:02 pm, 24-year-old Anis Amri drove a previously hijacked 40-ton semitrailer into a crowded Christmas market at the Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, Germany, at a speed of approximately 60 – 70 km/h (Fig. 1). A short video sequence of the incident is available at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=GipGqdvZy0o. Anis Amri had hijacked the truck prior to this action by shooting its driver (the so-called “co-driver” as he was found on the passenger seat of his truck, see below).
Crime scene investigation On 19th December 2016 at approximately 08:45 pm, the forensic on-call service was contacted by the Coordination Centre of the Berlin State Office of Criminal Investigation to alert them to the incedent. In addition to the two regular-duty colleagues (foreground and * Claas Buschmann [email protected]; http://www.rechtsmedizin.charite.de 1
Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin Institute of Health, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Turmstr. 21, Haus N, 10559 Berlin, Germany
background), a request was made for “several colleagues” to proceed to the location of the incident. Initially, the police raised the alarm with the forensic “foreground” service; further alarms proceeded by private telephone chain. At approximately 09:30 pm, five forensic colleagues (three assistant doctors and two forensic specialists) arrived at the scene. At this time (approximately 90 min after the attack), the pre-hospital treatment of the injured market visitors was complete, and no injured persons were present at the scene. It was recognizably a police situation instead of an emergency medical situation. The pre- and in-hospital aspects of the management strategies for the medical treatment of the injured persons have been reported elsewhere [1, 2]. After establishing a police management structure for the particular scenario, crime scene work by the police and forensic pathologists began at approximately 1:00 am. First, extensive forensic evidence collection a
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