REPORT

Bad cop
Police violence in Germany.
By Lalon Sander

Photo by Max A/CC BY-SA.

A man in a blue T-shirt with a bicycle

speaks to a police officer. Then, he
walks away. Suddenly, he is pulled
back by another policeman, hit in the
face and finally thrown to the ground,
then arrested. The policemen back away
from a gathering crowd shouting, “We
are peaceful, what are you!”
The scene from the Freedom not Fear
demonstration in Berlin, in September
2009, against the spreading of state
surveillance was well documented. At
least three techies filmed it, bloggers
posted it on Youtube and a high-resolution
version was made available for download
from many video hosting websites. It
subsequently became one of the most
controversially discussed incidents of
police violence in Germany.
In a first statement, Berlin police
claimed that the thirty-seven-year-old
man had been interfering with police
work. However, none of that was evident
in any of the videos of the incident. Not
even in the police’s own tapes. In his
own version of the story, the man in blue
claimed it was about the arrest of a friend,
and he was simply asking the officer to
identify himself. “Even the police videos
show that my client was not interfering

36 January/February 2010 Independent World report

with the police before his arrest,” said
Johannes Eisenberg, his lawyer.
The evidence became so damning that
two police officers are currently being
investigated for grievous bodily harm. “A
deliberate punch for no reason by one of
my officers is something I do not want to
experience,” said Dieter Glietsch, Berlin
police commissioner.
Unfortunately, none of the evidence
was recorded by any of the police
cameramen at the demonstrations.
Eisenberg later made the police videos
of the incident public, showing that
the police cameramen had turned
their cameras away from their violent
colleagues, thus ensuring that no video
evidence of the incident was captured.
The incident was the most recent
case, in which police violence at a
demonstration was documented. Activists
had been claiming for years that German
policemen used arbitrary and excessive
violence at demonstrations; that people
who brought charges against officers
often had to face charges themselves;
that officers protected each other before
the courts; that the proceedings were
slow and cases were often dropped
because the accused officers could not
be identified; and that in the rare cases,
in which policemen were convicted, they
received unreasonably lax sentences.
In 2004, a study by Amnesty
International, documenting cases of police
violence, lent those claims credibility.
The study presented cases in which the
police had used arbitrary or excessive
force against people, tortured them, and
in some cases, had even caused their
death. It noted that foreigners and people
with insecure rights of residence were
especially threatened. It demanded that
an authority be set up to work on statistics
about charges against the police force and
an independent authority be installed to
examine these charges. The study noted a
number of cases in which policemen were
convicted of using arbitrary or excessive
force during demonstrations. In those
rare cases, it was video evidence or
evidence given by other policemen that
led to the conviction.
In 2002, policemen at a demonstration
in Hamburg beat up two undercover
policemen, who they assumed were
regular demonstrators. Half a year later,
they were sentenced to twelve months in
prison on parole. “When officers commit
crimes, the citizens are helpless,” the judge
said in his ruling. He also noted that if
regular demonstrators had been attacked
instead of policemen, the culprits would
not even have been identified. Later, the
sentences for the two policemen were
revised to ten months on parole. The
revision ensured that they would not be
removed from service.
In 2001, a policeman attacked a
demonstrator in Berlin who was being
arrested and hit him on the head even
though he had been successfully detained
by other officers. The accused officer
later claimed that he only assisted his
colleagues in arresting the man who
allegedly wanted to throw rocks at
them. A TV-crew filming a documentary
recorded the incident. Their material
later supported the victim’s version of the
events, and ensured the conviction of the
policeman. The policeman was sentenced
to a fine of €4950.
In 2000, two policemen hit a Japanese
journalist who was looking for his
cameraman even though he had identified
himself. An amateur videographer had
recorded the incident. Two years later,
the policemen were sentenced to six and
eighteen months in prison. They were
released on parole and had to pay €2000
each to charitable organisations.
Over the past ten years, there had been
few cases besides those three, in which
policemen were sentenced for arbitrary
and excessive violence at demonstrations.
Amnesty International had been calling
for a personal identification tag in order
to make it easier to identify on-duty
police officers resorting to arbitrary or
excessive force against demonstrators.
After the incident with the man in blue,
an Amnesty spokesperson reiterated that
demand, saying that as a rule policemen
walked free when charged.
On the other hand, a 2008 study by
the law department of Berlins Freie
Universität showed that of 143 cases
filed against police officers only twelve
would have been solved if policemen
had worn personal identification tags.
The authors came to the conclusion that
personal identification is unnecessary.
However, the authors also sorted out over
one hundred cases, in which the victims
would have been unable to read the
personal identification because they had
been sprayed with pepper-spray. In ten
further cases, they could not ascertain
whether the identification would have
helped in the investigations.
In Berlin, for six years, police officers
already had personal identification tags.
Independent World report
In 2000, two policemen
hit a Japanese journalist
who was looking for his
cameraman even though he
had identified himself. An
amateur videographer had
recorded the incident.
Two years later, the
policemen were sentenced to
six and eighteen months in
prison. They were released
on parole and had
to pay €2000 each to
charitable organisations.
However, as wearing them was voluntary,
only a few put them on. Over the past
year, Berlin police commissioner, Dieter
Glietsch, had been pressing to make it
mandatory for on-duty officers, “We
have to ask ourselves, what it means to
be a police force close to the people. It is
not understandable that the most visible
representatives of state authority act
as if they have to conceal their identity
before the citizens.” With those words
the commissioner addressed fears within
the police force that criminals might use
the identification to harass them while
they were off-duty.
Glietsch, however, remained mostly
alone with his demands.
On the other hand, citizens and
activists began to take matters into their
own hands. After the incidents at the
Freedom not Fear demonstration, the
Committee for Basic Rights and Democracy
announced it would send observers to
a demonstration in November 2009.
“Some observers will have cameras,”
the organisation stated. “Some will have
video cameras.” �
Lalon Sander is a Berlin-based journalist
with Die Tageszeitung. The police violence
video mentioned in this report is available
online: vimeo.com/6548644
January/February 2010 37