By Ole Kroning and Timo Beurich
A pyro mob of up to 200 young people destroyed Kenan Alkan (40) seven windows at his doner kebab shop. Police officers fled from the crowd into the restaurant. Alkan and his staff used cold water to cool the severe burns of a police officer who had been shot at with fireworks.
Kenan Alkan (40) can’t get the images of New Year’s Eve out of his head. How everything went up in flames in front of his restaurant on Rotraud-Richter-Platz. Detonations like in a war zone.
Missiles did not fly in the air, but horizontally at anything that moved. Patrol officers took cover and sought protection in his restaurant. The official, who was shot at with a rocket in the visor of his helmet, also saved himself to Alkan.
Here the policeman at Wutzky in Gropiusstadt is shot at with a rocket. Then he runs back burning Photo: private
“He was on fire,” says the snack bar operator, who is still in shock. “The cop ran in and threw his body armor on the ground. The thing had slipped down his cleavage and exploded there, the skin on his torso and chin hanging down.”
Alkan and his staff used cold water to cool the officer’s wounds. Other police officers sought cover in the restaurant. An ambulance was on its way. Fire hell was raging outside. A snack employee who was in front of the door ruptured both eardrums. He hasn’t been able to hear since then.
At 8:30 p.m., Kenan Alkan closed the restaurant that he runs with his cousin in the Wutzky shopping center for security reasons. Bad experiences! Last New Year’s Eve his windows had also been broken.
In the early evening, the later injured police officer, his colleague and an experienced neighborhood officer were at Alkan, saying: “If the banging gets that bad again, call!” After midnight, the young officer was back. But he didn’t stand a chance against the pack outside.
The police officer (bottom right) is waiting for the ambulance with burns on his face, neck and upper body. Colleagues alert other emergency services Photo: Timo Beurich
“They didn’t shoot normal New Year’s fireworks, they were explosives that will tear you apart,” says the father of three, who came to Germany as a 12-year-old Kurdish refugee child. He points to the broken window panes. “There were 200 young people standing outside, I recognized about ten to 15 faces, but not the rest.”
He suspects that the rioters have arranged to meet via WhatsApp or TikTok. Many foreign children were among them, including young Syrians. “They experienced war and now they come to a safe, democratic country to play war.”
The firecracker war raged on Wutzkyallee until four in the morning. Then a hundred police officers had finally cleared the place. The next morning, Alkan taped up his destroyed windows as much as possible. Insurance will not pay for the damage. The fire partnership terminated his contract after the incidents last year.