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New Year's Eve in Berlin: fire brigade operation in Neukölln
Photo: Marius Schwarz / IMAGO
As a consequence of the attacks on emergency services in Berlin and other cities on New Year's Eve, the German fire brigade union is calling for emergency vehicles to be equipped with so-called dashcams.
These are small cameras that are often mounted behind the windshield.
In this way, such attacks could be better documented, said the Berlin-Brandenburg state association.
The union also referred to body cams that are currently being tested.
According to earlier information from the Berlin Interior Senate, the fire brigade and police in the capital have been equipped with 300 of these cameras.
Dangerous situations are to be filmed with the devices.
Working under police protection
"It is unimaginable what our emergency services had to experience on New Year's Eve," said state chairman Lars Wieg, according to the announcement.
The fire brigade and police in Berlin counted more than 30 injured emergency services on the night of New Year's Day.
"A mob threatened the emergency services with weapons, our colleagues were only able to work under police protection," says Wieg.
There was also significant property damage to emergency vehicles.
In response to the attacks, the Berlin police union, for example, demanded that a far-reaching ban on firecrackers be taken seriously.
"You have to make it much more difficult for these people to act in the future."
Before the turn of the year, the German Fire Brigade Association spoke out in favor of cracking down on attacks on emergency services.
“We don't need harsher penalties.
I just want these penalties to be enforced," said association president Karl-Heinz Banse.
"It can't be that our people are endangered, almost run over and afterwards it's presented as a petty crime."
wit/dpa
