Actually, two police officers only wanted to record the personal details of an elderly lady, but were received by a hysterical family and insulted and injured by their 18-year-old son. Therefore, the now 19-year-old Erdinger now sat in front of the district court Erding and had to answer for his bizarre behavior.
Erding – The whole thing was preceded by a neighborhood dispute in June 2022 in Erding, in which the defendant's grandmother was involved. She apparently insulted her neighbor, who in turn called the police and filed a complaint. The officers interrogated the man at home and then wanted to ring the bell in the house next door to record the grandmother's personal details. But the family of five, especially the 18-year-old son, reacted in horror.
In a bodycam footage shown by Judge Michael Lefkaditis, the police officers can be seen trying to explain themselves again and again, shouting aggressively: "Do you even have a search warrant?" or "Are you real police officers, or are you from the carnival club?"
The defendant's mother said on the witness stand that she had first contact with the officers and that the rest of the family was in the back yard at the time. She referred the police to the mailbox regarding the personal details and said that the grandmother was old and had a heart condition and should be left alone.
The family had assumed that the police officers were fraudsters. As a result, one of the officers shook the garden fence "like crazy": "I've been in Germany since 1999. I come from a war-torn country, but I've never experienced anything like it," said the Yugoslavian. However, the video recording shows the complete opposite.
When the term "carnival club" is mentioned, the officers calmly explain to the son that he is now also a suspect for insult, and repeatedly demand his ID. The student also wants to see a service card, but the officials don't show one. "From experience, I don't show the ID card in such tense situations because people could tear it away from me," said the 30-year-old Erding policeman as a witness. Instead, he pointed out his uniform and the patrol car. In addition, a second patrol was added shortly afterwards – at this point at the latest, the family should have realized that they were real police officers and not fraudsters.
After minutes of discussion, as can be seen in the recording, the police climb over the fence. The family becomes even more panicked, even more agitated, the son shouts dozens of times: "Help!" As he tries to run away, he is detained by an officer, whom he slightly injures while trying to escape. He also slightly injured a 26-year-old female officer. He finally manages to free himself, cries in his father's arms and calls for a doctor.
For lawyer Dirk Asche, the whole police operation was not lawful. The officials could also have obtained the personal details in other ways, for example via the residents' registration data. This is what finally happened after the family members locked themselves up at home.
Judge Lefkaditis saw the whole thing differently: "The officials only wanted to record personal details. This is the most low-threshold measure of all." Why should they look for other possibilities, he asked: "Why should justice give way to injustice?" The officials had reacted calmly and tried again and again to calm the situation.
The 19-year-old now has to do 80 hours of community service for insult in unity with resistance to law enforcement officers and bodily harm. A conversation between the defendant and the juvenile court assistance did not take place, but Lefkaditis said: "With such pubertal, childish behavior, we have to assume maturity delays." Therefore, juvenile criminal law is to be applied here. MAYLS MAJURANI