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Incident in Pforzheim: debate about police violence reignited
Photo: Uli Deck / dpa
After a police operation in Pforzheim, in which at least one officer apparently hit a man lying on the ground, the public prosecutor's office is investigating.
A spokesman for the Pforzheim authority said it could take several weeks for the work to be completed.
On Monday, she initiated a preliminary investigation into possible bodily harm in the office.
The investigation was carried out by the Stuttgart police headquarters for reasons of neutrality.
According to the spokesman, they are not directed against a single officer or several officers.
First of all, it will be checked whether the operation was legal overall.
"Brought to the ground and fixed"
The background is an incident last Saturday.
Officials wanted to arrest an apparently drunk and aggressive 25-year-old.
Video recordings are circulating on the Internet that are supposed to show the incident.
Among other things, a policeman can be seen beating the man who is lying on the ground and fixed.
The police announced that it was a "partial sequence" from which the "overall situation" was not apparent.
The man mobbed passers-by in Pforzheim's northern city on Saturday and wanted to stop vehicles, the police reported.
When a patrol arrived, the 25-year-old was aggressive.
Attempts to calm him down have failed.
"Since he posed considerable dangers, he finally had to be taken into custody," it said.
"Because he strongly resisted the measures, he subsequently had to be brought to the ground and restrained in order to break the acts of resistance."
A policeman was injured and had to stop working.
The 25-year-old suffered minor injuries, according to the police.
After the video was published, Internet users expressed criticism of the tough action taken by the emergency services.
Police spokesman Dirk Wagner told the dpa news agency on Monday that the 25-year-old had 2.2 per mille and did not want to seek medical help.
After he was sober, he wanted to apologize to his colleagues for his behavior.
Regardless of this, it is important to investigate the actions of the officials.
The spokesman admitted that the scenes in the video recordings look "brutal".
bbr / dpa