Hands to the neck and on the back: police officers clear a blocker from the street Photo: Julian Lövenich
By Axel Lier
There is still controversy over a video showing a Berlin police operation against a “last generation” road blocker.
Last Thursday at around 10:30 a.m., two officers cleared the man from Straße des 17. Juni (Tiergarten). Despite repeated requests, the blocker remained seated, the two police officers used arm levers and pressed on pain points.
The situation, which caused a lot of excitement on social networks, was filmed many times Photo: Julian Lövenich
BZ asked the operational trainers and officials of a hundred operations: Was the procedure correct?
► “Without knowing the full circumstances, I would say it was rather unfortunate,” says one of them. The proportionality does not seem to be maintained.
► And another colleague asks: “Why didn’t the two colleagues carry the young, not exactly heavy man away without pain grips on his neck? Why is the man approached from the front and not from behind?”
Eventually, the activist was carried off the roadway Photo: Julian Lövenich
Everyone agrees that “immediate compulsion” never produces beautiful pictures. But no matter what the emotional situation, the twentieth arrest must be exactly like the first. “That’s what we get paid for.”
The police themselves are checking the content of the video, as announced on Twitter.