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New early warning system in North Rhine-Westphalia: How the police want to stop people running amok

2021-12-01T06:24:55.764Z


Attacks by mentally unstable men repeatedly shake the public. In North Rhine-Westphalia the police tried a new concept to prevent rampage. The final report is available to SPIEGEL.


Enlarge image

Police officers during an anti-terrorist exercise

Photo: picture alliance / Sven Hoppe / dpa

On December 1st, 2020, shortly before 2 p.m., Bernd W. raced his Land Rover through the Christmas decorated pedestrian zone in Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate.

The 52-year-old is said to have been up to 80 kilometers per hour.

He killed five people and injured 18 others.

When the police arrived, W. was standing at the SUV, grinning and with a cigarette in his mouth.

At the moment, the alleged multiple murderer has to answer before the regional court.

The exact motive for his insane act is still unclear.

According to an expert, W. suffers from a psychosis.

According to a witness, W. had previously expressed violent fantasies.

Nevertheless, it was a blank slate for the security authorities.

Exactly one year later, the interior ministers of the federal states and representatives of the federal interior ministry come together for their autumn conference.

Twice a year the most important security politicians in the republic advise on the current threat situation and the general conditions of their work.

One of the most important topics this year: the prevention of so-called rampage.

Amok, terror - or both

Trier, Bottrop, Münster, Hanau - apparently unpredictable violent crimes shock the public at regular intervals. It is often difficult to distinguish between what is amok and what is more terror. Like last time at the beginning of November, when a refugee from Syria stabbed people indiscriminately in an ICE near Regensburg. He injured four travelers, some seriously. Since there was evidence of paranoid schizophrenia in the man, the 27-year-old was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. During the search of his apartment, however, investigators also came across propaganda material from the terrorist militia "Islamic State" (IS).

Take Würzburg, for example: a Somali killed three people there in June with a knife attack. After the fact, the man in the hospital babbled something about the "holy war". But two experts are now assuming that the attacker is incapable of guilt due to a mental illness. He also needs permanent treatment.

The list of these crimes, which follow a similar pattern, is constantly growing.

The attackers are always male, often psychologically conspicuous, sometimes extremist.

Or all together.

The state is particularly poorly prepared for murderers.

If someone is not classified as a politically motivated threat and if there is no contact with extremist scenes, later assassins often remain hidden from the authorities.

For a long time it was said in security circles that there was practically no protection against spontaneous acts of mentally unstable people.

Ticking time bombs acting madly are difficult to recognize.

Although violent crimes have declined overall for years, the population's sense of security is suffering with the accumulation of so-called amoctates, says a senior official.

"Could the act have been prevented?"

That should change now.

At the autumn conference of the interior ministers, the North Rhine-Westphalian head of department Herbert Reul (CDU) is presenting the results of an elaborate pilot project for the first time .

"After every murder in recent years, I asked myself: Could it have been prevented?" Says Reul.

"My personal assessment: 'Periscope' would have minimized the risk."

Between March and August of last year, three district police authorities, under the direction of the Düsseldorf State Criminal Police Office (LKA), tested the new set of instruments with which potential murder perpetrators can be identified at an early stage.

The confidential final report of the study is available to SPIEGEL.

The basic idea of ​​"periscope" is simple: As the LKA report says, many people who ran amok and assassins showed conspicuous behavior even before they committed themselves. So mentally unstable men - consciously or unconsciously - regularly made suggestions about possible acts of violence. Some of the perpetrators have already been noticed by the police or other authorities as troublemakers. Some also tried to obtain a gun license before an attack. But: In the past, such information about men with an affinity for violence, who were mentally conspicuous and who were not also recorded as extremists, was processed in a bundle.

In the test areas of Bielefeld, Kleve and Münster, things went differently in the past few months. First of all, the "periscope" clerks searched their databases for people who had shown themselves to be psychologically conspicuous and violent. Then the investigators compared a total of 35 test cases with a long checklist that had been drawn up with the help of psychologists: Had anyone dealt intensively with weapons in the past? Did the person concerned generally refuse to cooperate with the police or other authorities? What are the current living conditions and what stabilizing factors are there? An intensive consideration of individual cases should rule out blanket assessments and a general suspicion of the mentally ill.

If a possible risk was recognized, the investigators looked for responsible contacts in institutions such as health and regulatory authorities, immigration authorities and also in psychiatric clinics. "The close, and above all personal, contact with one another creates the trust that is required to establish an exchange, particularly with the medical / psychiatric contact points," says the project report. These institutions are often not used to an intensive dialogue with the police.

Even if clinics did not share information about patients with investigators for data protection reasons, the conferences apparently brought progress in many cases.

The project sensitizes external institutions to possible dangers, it is said.

Health authorities and clinics took a closer look at the cases named by the police, thought about more intensive care and thus also minimized the possible risk.

With the samurai sword on the street

As in the case of a mentally ill person from Bielefeld who the criminal investigation team came across. The young man had already attracted attention because he had handled a samurai sword in public and talked about having to "hack" people. The officials inquired of relatives and employers and conducted what is known as a dangerous conversation with the person concerned. The police then informed the health department and the local weapons authority. The measures evidently led to success: the "case processing" could be ended, the criminologists stated. Danger averted.

Or a woman beater, again from Bielefeld. A clerk noticed him while looking through the databases because of his massive history of violence. After further research, it turned out that the 35-year-old also owned a submachine gun. After talking to the man in the presence of his guardian and relatives, the police obtained a pre-trial detention order.

"The project is a success," says Munster Police President Falk Schnabel, in whose authority eleven people were checked during the periscope test, according to the LKA final report.

"We are now creating a network between the health system, local authorities and the police, which should ideally enable us to deter people from acts of violence." The police should be able to recognize earlier how an unstable person is doing.

It is up to the health authorities whether they are allowed to give the police information according to the patient data protection laws.

"It is important to me to clarify that we will not receive any new powers with the› periscope ‹," says Schnabel.

"We are only creating the prerequisites for the competent authorities to work together even better on the basis of existing laws."

The LKA sums up the new model in its final report.

In practice, however, "periscope" means a considerable expenditure of time, and extensive training for investigators is essential.

NRW Interior Minister Reul is now examining the introduction of the program in other police authorities.

"It's not a panacea, but it brings us a giant step forward when it comes to the early detection of people at risk," said the minister.

He is convinced »that› periscope ‹is not only worthwhile for NRW«.

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-12-01

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