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Police officer (symbol image): 29 officers under suspicion
Photo: Klubovy / Getty Images
At six o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, more than 200 police officers swarmed in North Rhine-Westphalia for an unprecedented operation.
In the focus of the Soko "Parable" officers: colleagues from the police.
They searched their homes and offices in Duisburg, Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Oberhausen, Moers and Selm.
Places where these colleagues live and work, 29 police officers.
You are said to have received or sent right-wing extremist messages in five chat groups.
"Deep brown sauce" is how an officer familiar with the case calls the shared content.
North Rhine-Westphalia is experiencing a police scandal, the extent of which is not yet foreseeable.
One thing is clear: this is not the first time that police officers with right-wing extremist attitudes have been noticed.
But this time there are signs of a blatant leadership failure.
And because of its dimensions, the case is likely to undermine trust in the security forces particularly severely.
Especially those police officers who shape the image of the organization are under suspicion.
Which the citizens often encounter.
Officials who patrol, record accidents or mediate family disputes.
Police officers in their mid-20s to mid-50s, some of them have a migration background.
All of them have been "inconspicuous" so far, according to the Essen police chief Frank Richter.
And it is precisely these men and women who are said to have exchanged "right-wing extremist propaganda".
For years.
Hundreds of times.
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