The New Year’s Eve riot with Louis Vuitton bags in court Photo: Olaf Wagner
By Anne Losensky
A rioter from Berlin-Neukölln was convicted in court on Tuesday for firing a New Year’s Eve rocket at a police officer: Dilan M. (21) gets off with an eight-month youth sentence, two years probation and 70 hours of recreational work.
New Year’s Day 2023, shortly after 4 a.m. Barricades are burning in Berlin’s Schillerpromenade. A violent mob awaits the police. “One stood up in front of me with clenched fists and a battle cry, then he fired a rocket from two to three meters away,” remembers an officer (26). “I was able to turn away, otherwise she would have been in the eye.”
The perpetrator “with a joker bandana” was arrested. “He got carried away,” the defender reassures. The defendant is silent.
He lives into the day. Unemployed. Previously convicted. July 2020 “judicial instructions” (insult, bodily harm). July 2022 fine (caught on New Year’s Eve 2021 with a blank pistol and 64 “La Bomba” firecrackers). In November 2022 he skipped 36 hours of leisure work (drug possession). The lady from the youth court service doesn’t know him, but she doesn’t find “any harmful tendencies” in him.
The judge is stunned: “This was a particularly serious case of a physical attack on law enforcement officers combined with attempted grievous bodily harm; there are clearly harmful tendencies here!”
The verdict: eight months in youth custody, two years probation, 70 hours of recreational work. Plus a six-month driving license suspension for driving without a license and hit-and-run (drifting off a car rear-view mirror on a scooter).