AP News, April 16th, 2007
The German Defense Ministry said Monday that an incident in which an army instructor ordered a soldier to envision himself facing hostile blacks in New York while firing his machine gun was "absolutely unacceptable."
"This behavior is absolutely unacceptable and contradicts the training standards of the German army," Defense Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said.
He said the army is investigating the incident, which was recorded in an Internet video. He didn't say when the probe will be completed.
A video of the army instructor telling the soldier to shoot and yell obscenities while thinking of African-Americans in the Bronx aired on German national television Saturday and prompted calls for an apology by the New York City borough's president.
The video shows an instructor and a soldier in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier, "You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways. ... Act."
The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder.
The German Defense Ministry said the video was shot in July 2006 at barracks in the northern town of Rendsburg and that the army has been aware of it since January.
In New York, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr. has called for whoever was responsible for the video to be disciplined.
"The German government obviously has work to do to correct something that is insidious. ... Clearly these folks don't know anything about African-Americans or the Bronx," he said Saturday.
The video was taken down from the German myvideo.de Web site but reappeared on youtube.com.
