The State Office of Criminal Investigation of Baden-Württemberg. © Bernd Weißbrod/dpa
The LKA building in Stuttgart has long been considered outdated, too small, too dilapidated. A new building is needed. However, the Ministry of the Interior is planning it in the wrong place, according to the police union.
Stuttgart - From the point of view of the German Police Union, the new State Office of Criminal Investigation should be built in the countryside. The current plans within the city of Stuttgart are not sustainable and backward-looking, said union boss Ralf Kusterer of the German Press Agency. A site on Stuttgart's Pragstraße is currently planned. According to the Ministry of the Interior, there is already a cabinet decision on this.
"The decontamination of the planned area alone costs millions and takes time," Kusterer now criticizes. It could take years before construction begins. A new building outside the city would allow development prospects in the future. The ever-increasing challenges in the fight against crime required reserve space. "The plans are already inadequate and cramped."
The LKA main building was built in 1978 and was originally designed as a purely administrative building. In January, there was a power outage in the building. As a result, some computers and servers overheated, smoke developed in the building and problems with IT occurred. The outage had also partly affected the IT systems of police headquarters in the country. LKA chief Andreas Stenger spoke of a "dramatic situation". He justified the failure with the dilapidated building and outdated conductor rails and pleaded for the new construction to be accelerated.
After the power outage, Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) had said that he wanted to tackle the new construction of the LKA building faster than planned. The Greens also agreed. Dpa
