Yves Rausch, aka “German Rambo,” has been arrested following a five-day manhunt that began after he disarmed four police officers. The 31-year-old man’s nickname is, of course, based on the Sylvester Stallone character—a Vietnam veteran-turned-vigilante who fights corrupt police in the eponymous 1982 action movie.
According to the BBC, Rausch was first contacted by authorities who were investigating reports of a suspicious man loitering around the edge of a forest near Oppenau in southwest Germany. A camouflage-clad Rausch was initially cooperative when officers approached his hut…until he pulled out a pistol and somehow disarmed the four-man squad. With the guns, a bow and arrows and an axe on his person, he then fled deep into the forest, which he is believed to be know well.
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What ensued was a nearly week-long search that employed an elite Special Operations Command (SEK) unit—similar to American Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) units—as well as helicopters, thermal signature detectors, police dogs and a team of more than 2,534 officers. He was ultimately found in a bush with the pistols and an axe on his lap. German tabloid Bild reports that a taser was deployed and an officer sustained superficial injuries from the hatchet during Rausch’s apprehension.
Rausch has a documented criminal record. He was handed a juvenile jail sentence of three years for shooting a woman with a crossbow 10 years ago. More recently, he was found in possession of child pornography.
He is reportedly very self-sufficient. According to his mother, Rausch grew his own vegetables, used the hut as his home, and whittled wooden gnomes with the hopes of selling them. Additionally, investigators had previously discovered a sort of manifesto titled The Call of the Wild that was likely authored by Rausch. In it, he argues that people who live in nature are superior to city-dwellers.
