WORLD
'Very, very dangerous': Suspected poacher kills 3, takes hostage in Austria, police say
Baku, September 17 (AZERTAC). Some 100 armed police surrounded a farmhouse in Austria on Tuesday after a suspected poacher shot dead two officers and an ambulance driver before taking a third police officer hostage, officials said.
The armed units were accompanied by a tank near the village of Melk in a siege operation which was still ongoing at 2.30 p.m. local time (8.30 a.m. ET), Interior Minister spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said.
The incident started when police stopped the suspect Monday night in a forested near the Alpine ski resort of Annaberg, Grundboeck said. The spokesman added the man was stopped because he had been suspected of poaching in the area for some years.
Upon being pulled over the man “immediately” opened fire on the two police officers, killing one of them, Grunboeck said. The shooter waited in the area until an ambulance driver arrived before opening fire again, killing the medic.
Grundboeck said the suspect then fled the scene and was apprehended by another police team in the area, at which point he shot and killed a second officer.
He fled by car to his farmhouse in Melk, about 40 miles away, where he barricaded himself inside and was holding a police officer hostage. There was no one else in the farmhouse.