In the past few days, police officers across Germany have come under fire for operations. Now a case from Hamburg is causing discussion. A mission in front of a wall with the words "I can't breathe".
Hamburg (dpa) - Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and now Hamburg: Videos of police actions continue to cause debates. The most recent case: a deployment in Hamburg's Neustadt district in front of a mobile phone camera.
The Twitter video shows how seven or eight officers in Hamburg bring down a young person who is standing in front of a wall with the graffiti writing "I can't breathe" (I can't breathe) - based on police violence in the UNITED STATES.
In a longer version of the video, you can see that the young person had previously fought against two policewomen and two policemen and repeatedly pushed them aside. An officer pulls out a baton. Then reinforcements arrive. The tall young man, who, according to witnesses, is said to be 15 years old, continues to fight back, a police officer yells at the young man repeatedly: "On the ground!" A witness can be heard telling the officers to remain calm. Eventually they overpower the youngster and hold him down to the ground. On the video you can hear him apparently shouting: "I can't breathe, I can't breathe." The witness calls out: "What are you doing to him, he can't breathe."
The operation was heavily discussed on social media and the police were sometimes accused of disproportionate violence. Above all, a shorter version of the video was shown, which does not show how the young man initially pushes the four officers. The Hamburg left-wing parliamentary group leader Cansu Özdemir demanded immediate clarification and asked on Twitter: "What was your goal in front of this writing on the wall?" The refugee aid organization Seebrücke stated that this incident was only one in a series of similar attacks "that are repeatedly perpetrated by the Hamburg police against Persons of Color".
The police union said they did not recognize "police violence" in the video. "In the public discussion, however, we see tendencies that can lead to a weakening of the rule of law. One almost has the feeling that police violence and latent racism should be brought about at any cost." These are also the consequences of the statements made by SPD chairman Saskia Esken. Esken had declared in June that there was "latent racism" in German security authorities.
The police announced on Tuesday lunchtime that the incident occurred the day before, when a district policeman tried to check the young person who he had noticed several times in the past few days. He had repeatedly used the sidewalk with an electric scooter, in violation of the prohibition. The young person therefore did not comply with the request to identify himself. The tenth grader later told the "Bild" newspaper: "I know that I provoked the officer."
Ultimately, pepper spray was used, according to the police. After that, the officers managed to hold the youth on the ground and tie them up. "The deployment techniques were controlled in such a way that the young person was able to breathe at any time," it said.
The police emphasized that the video clearly showed that the officers were willing to end the resistance with simple physical violence and bring the youth to the ground. "Such missions often generate images that raise questions." The use will be checked by the Internal Investigation Department.
Satirist Jan Böhmermann tweeted about the police's statement that they were tactically behaving like a 15-year-old who suddenly saw himself standing with his back to the wall by eight armed men because of a harmless administrative offense and was yelled at: "She is making senseless resistance."
A police spokesman told the German Press Agency that the young person was known to the police for two attacks on teachers. It was also not easy for the officers to deal with him. The 15-year-old is 1.85 tall and boxing in a club.
In the past few days there had been several cases in which videos of operations led to debates about police violence, for example in Düsseldorf. A 15-year-old was pressed to the ground by an officer with his knee on his head. An eyewitness video had spread on the Internet and triggered comparisons with the case of the African American George Floyd in the United States.
In Hessen, after a police operation against a 29-year-old in the Frankfurt district of Sachsenhausen, an expert commission was set up. A mobile phone video circulating on social networks shows the man being kicked and punched. Hesse's Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) said the work of the commission is related to right-wing extremist threatening emails and the debate about possible right-wing networks among the police. The overriding goal is to restore confidence in the security authorities, said Beuth.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200818-99-209557 / 5
1. Police reaction on Twitter
Tweet with video in long version and split screen short version
Full video on YouTube
PM the police
Tweet of the left-wing politicians Cansu Özdemir
Bohemian tweet