Reporters, Police Assailed in Fatal W. German Chase

West German politicians on Friday criticized police handling of a three-day chase in which three people were killed and said journalists looking for scoops had encouraged the two fleeing bank robbers and delayed their capture.

Commissions of inquiry were set up by Parliaments in the three states where the 435-mile chase took place.

Killed during the 55-hour drama were an 18-year-old girl hostage, a teen-age boy aboard a hijacked bus and a policeman who died in a crash while chasing the suspects, who were finally ambushed and captured Thursday.

One police officer said the robbers had seized the bus because they believed that reporters chasing them were plainclothes police.

Journalists, who twice staged impromptu street news conferences with one of the gunmen, were accused by politicians of having glorified crime.

Reporters and photographers who pursued the gunmen during the 55-hour drama had severely hampered police work, said Hermann Krause, chairman of the police union.

“Considering the death of three people, several injured and the suffering of hostages, this is an unprecedented breach of professional ethics and journalistic morals for profit reasons,” said federal parliamentary deputy Fritz Wittmann.