BERLIN – Violence erupted overnight in Frankfurt between police and youth who have partied in a central city square on weekends, with bars and clubs closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
It was the latest outbreak of violence that involved the German police in the middle of a national debate on prejudice and racial profiling in the police ranks.
“The mood turned against us,” Frankfurt Police Chief Gerhard Bereswill said at a press conference Sunday, adding that members of the crowd had fought with police officers. “Certain groups are encouraged, especially when they have been drinking, to attack the police,” he added.
The violence in Frankfurt comes weeks after hundreds of young people clashed with the police and destroyed dozens of shops in Stuttgart.
Coverage of protests in the United States against police brutality and systemic racism has received wide attention throughout Germany, encouraging immigrant groups to speak out against what they say is years of being detained by random agents, based solely on their appearance or skin color. .
Police in Germany have long been widely respected by the majority of the public, but have come under heavy criticism and more frequent attacks since protests have plagued the United States.
When asked what he thought was behind the violence, Chief Bereswill said that several elements had come together, including an aggressive mood fueled by alcohol, but also the public debate in Germany about the police racial profile of following the murder of George Floyd by an officer in Minneapolis in May.
At least some of the 39 people initially detained in the hand-to-hand combat came from a “migrant background,” police said, without providing further details.
“The racial profiling allegation is very prevalent in society at the moment,” he said, adding that the issue of police violence in the United States “has spread to Germany and the German police are being falsely compared to the police. U.S”.
“All that came together and we feel that on the streets,” Hessische Rundfunk said in an interview with public television.
Last week, Horst Seehofer, Germany’s top security official, rejected calls to his ministry to conduct a study on structural racism among the country’s police officers, insisting that he saw no indication among the federal force that the racial profiling was a problem. Instead, he said his ministry would continue an investigation of extremism and racism in the public sector that had already been commissioned.
“For weeks the police have come under heavy criticism, and I would like to see us return to a factual discussion,” Seehofer told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. “To do this, we need an overview of extremism, anti-Semitism and racism across the public sector.”
Opernplatz, the square outside Frankfurt’s opera house, where violence erupted overnight, has become the scene of regular weekend parties this summer, with thousands of people gathered around a fountain for socializing, drinking and dance.
About 3,000 people were there on Saturday night, a racially mixed crowd of various ages and economic backgrounds.
The celebrations remained largely peaceful until about 3 am Sunday, when a fight broke out between about two dozen revelers who are still in the square, Chief Bereswill said. When a group of 10 officers moved to give first aid to an injured person, some in the crowd turned to them and began throwing bottles and glasses at them.
Others cheered when the glass flew, he said, and five officers were injured.
Frankfurt police said eight of the 39 people arrested remained in custody on Sunday. Authorities in Frankfurt are investigating those eight, all 17-21 years old, on suspicion of attacking agents and destroying public property.
A video posted on the website of the local radio station FFH showed great approval from the crowd when a man wielding a trash can managed to break the glass at a bus stop on the edge of the plaza.
City authorities have installed hundreds of temporary trash cans and portable toilets to keep empty bottles and other trash from accumulating in the plaza in recent weeks.
“Our Opera Square is dedicated to ‘The True Beautiful Good,'” wrote Omid Nouripour, a Green lawmaker who grew up in Frankfurt, on Twitter. “They are not idiots who hurt the police, destroy bus stations and destroy everything for peaceful revelers.”
