Overview

• A 13-year-old patient under court-ordered placement in a Paderborn youth psychiatric clinic attacked a 24-year-old caregiver in the kitchen during a brief absence of her assigned guard; the caregiver, initially in critical condition, is now out of immediate danger.
• Police confirmed they warned the clinic days earlier that granting the patient kitchen access posed a risk, raising questions about supervisory and procedural failures.
• The Mordkommission Bielefeld and the Staatsanwaltschaft Paderborn have taken over the investigation, examining how the knife was accessed, the suspect’s potential Islamist motives and the role of institutional oversight.
• Because she is 13 and below Germany’s age of criminal responsibility, the suspect cannot be held in pretrial detention and is being transferred to a closed psychiatric facility pending decisions by local authorities.
• The incident has intensified scrutiny of Germany’s monitoring of radicalized minors, the limits of juvenile criminal law and the operational responsibilities of psychiatric and security providers.