Hessian SEK comes correct
So last Thursday a “confused” man entered the Kinopolis in the Rhein-Neckar-Zentrum shopping center located in the town of Viernheim around armed with an unidentified weapon from which he fired at least four shots in the air. This initiated a response from Hessian state police Spezialeinsatzkommando (SEK) members from nearby Frankfurt who ended the hostage situation (four workers and 14 visitors held against their will) with judicious use of chemicals (CS) and surgical use of small arms.
At the end of the incident, the gunman was expired but all the movie-goers were fine with the exception of a whiff of CS.
Post-shooting analysis show the 19-year old German at the root of the incident to be a disturbed young man armed with blank firing alarm guns and fake grenades, which is sad and seems leaning towards suicide by cop.
Not to be confused with the smaller and more counter-terror focused federal GSG9, SEKs are more akin to special response/SWAT teams and by looking at the imagery coming from the incident, there are a few uniquely German take-aways.
On a semi-related note, HK is bringing their newest civilian-legal version of the MP5K to the U.S. in coming days.
I fooled around with one last month in Louisville and have to admit it is kinda sweet.
The good news is, the SP5K is still made at the HK Oberndorf factory in Germany and comes with a STANAG 4694 Profile mounting rail.
Bad news is it’s $2,699 MSRP and if you add the optional folding buttstock you are still looking at the stamp. Still, the closest competition, the Zenith MKE Z-5 series, runs close to that and no matter how nice they are, still don’t say HK on them…