339 police officers injured in riots - half of the suspects in Frankfurt without a German passport

According to research by Focus magazine, at least 339 police officers were injured in the recent riots on the sidelines of the nationwide youth protests, most of them slightly. There were around 330 arrests and detentions, as the paper reported on Friday. So far, 218 criminal proceedings have been initiated.

In Frankfurt am Main in particular, massive riots broke out on October 31st after initially predominantly peaceful “GenZ” protests. According to authorities, 17 shops in downtown Frankfurt around the Zeil shopping mile were damaged and five of them were looted. There were also riots in other cities such as Cologne and Hamburg.

According to “Focus”, what is striking is the high proportion of suspects without a German passport in Frankfurt am Main, the city with the most crimes on the night of the riot: around half of them do not have a German passport. In addition, the other half of the suspects with a German passport also have foreign citizenship.

Against this background, the German Police Union (DPolG) is calling for more transparency regarding the origin of suspects. The police have the necessary information such as place of birth or possible dual citizenship, said Manuel Ostermann, deputy federal chairman of the DPolG, to “Focus”. He assumes that “transparency in numbers can also resolve the increased polarization in society because the guesswork stops.”

Ostermann thus supported Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt. The CSU politician blamed left-wing extremists and “migrant chaotics” for the violence.

In fact, the police do not officially differentiate between people with and without a migration background. The crime statistics include whether a suspect has German citizenship or not. The nationality of foreign suspects is also registered - but not whether a German citizen has foreign roots.

Ruud Koopmans, Professor of Sociology and Migration Research at Humboldt University Berlin, joined the call for more transparency. In “Focus” he called it “useful to mention the origin in police press statements” – especially when the acts “may have a cultural background, such as homophobic violence, anti-Semitism, but also where the type of group affiliation is relevant.” And this is “obvious” when it comes to acts committed by groups.

According to the police union (GdP), categorizing the migrant background would entail legal difficulties. Currently, no one can say how high the proportion of people with a migrant background is among the perpetrators, said Benjamin Jendro, spokesman for the GdP in Berlin. Whether a German has foreign roots can currently only be recorded for a few crimes. If politicians want to have reliable data, they need appropriate instructions to collect it, said Jendro.

afp/saha