Turkish police photo of Fatih Khan G., mass shooter of Stade.

Some stories are so insane you hardly know where to start with them.

On Monday a man shot up a youth welfare centre in Stade, near Hamburg, ultimately leaving six social workers dead. Before police could arrive, the shooter left the building and got into a Mercedes GLE Coupé, where his getaway driver was waiting. Police pursued the car, shot out its tyres and arrested driver and shooter while bystanders filmed:

Authorities initially refused to release any information about their suspect, claiming that his ethnic background had no relevance to the crime. Since late Monday evening, however, the steady intravenous drip of information has revealed this to be one of the most bizarre and insane crimes in recent memory.

1) The suspect, Fatih Khan G., is a Turkish citizen, born in Hannover. Early unconfirmed reports – since called into question – held that he was a member of the Miri Clan, an organised crime cartel active around Bremen. As always, he was known to German police for prior threatening behaviour.

2) Fatih Khan G.’s weapon was a Beretta 70 semi-automatic pistol, which he purchased on the black market for the amazing price of €4,000 in Berlin Kürfurstendamm – exactly one week before the attack.

3) At the time of the shooting, Fatih Khan G. was under investigation for child abuse. His infant daughter had suffered a serious brain injury and authorities suspected shaken baby syndrome and withdrew her from his custody. He travelled to the youth welfare centre in Stade on Monday to meet his daughter and her mother and attend some kind of counselling or planning session with social workers. He sent mother and daughter out of the room, then pulled out his gun and started shooting.

4) Fatih Khan G. is wanted for serious sex crimes in Turkey, including the suspected sexual abuse of his own daughter. He escaped pretrial detention in Turkey in 2021 and made his way back to Germany, totally safe from the Turkish authorities because naturally our own police never have the slightest idea about the criminal records of the foreigners we allow to live here.

5) Fatih Khan G.’s getaway driver turns out to be a 65 year-old German woman named Sylvia S. She works for the Verband binationaler Familien und Partnerscahften, a well-funded migration advocacy NGO. Sylvia S. was the godmother of Fatih Khan G.’s poor brain-injured daughter. Three days before the shooting, Sylvia S. circulated to various media outlets a 20-page memo defending Fatih Khan G. and arguing that his daughter should be returned to his custody.

6) Our unlikely getaway driver Sylvia S. is also the mother-in-law of an SPD politician named Deniz Kurku. Kurku serves in the state parliament of Lower Saxony, where he is State Commissioner for Migration and Inclusion. Kurku has been in the news most recently for his connection to a corruption scandal surrounding another Turkish SPD politician named Hülya Iri. Basically, Kurku recommended public funding for an asylum NGO run by Iri, which NGO existed solely to transfer money to Iri’s bank account.

7) The getaway car driven by Sylvia S. had been re-registered under her name five weeks before the shooting. It is a flashy Mercedes of the kind preferred by many Turkish and Arab migrants, and the last thing you’d expect lefty boomer NGO-affiliated women to be driving. It is registered in Hannover and the number plate, which includes the letters “KD,” may suggest it is in fact Deniz Kurku’s automobile.

8) Sylvia S. was released hours after her arrest on Monday, and as of now she faces no criminal charges.