After escalation: Operations manager: New dimension of violence after demo in Frankfurt

The day after, the operations manager describes how the situation changed after the demonstration was broken up and which groups of people were involved.

Frankfurt/Main. After the night of the riot in Frankfurt, the police operations manager reported a “new dimension of violence” following the dispersed demonstration. “The vast majority of people who demonstrated in Frankfurt yesterday did so peacefully,” said Erik Hessenmüller in Frankfurt. “We have to clearly differentiate between the meeting and the riots that followed.”

During the demonstration there were repeated cases of masking, the setting off of pyrotechnics and the throwing of firecrackers - by a small number of people compared to the total number of demo participants. There was an “increasingly violent focus” in the demonstration.

“Initially, people from the left-wing, and sometimes also left-wing extremist, spectrum gathered there,” reported Hessenmüller. “As the process progressed, young, violent people with a predominantly migrant background increasingly joined in.” In some cases there were also “references to the pro-Palestine spectrum”. “From this area there were increasingly massive disturbances and attacks on police forces.”