It remains unclear why a police officer’s shot hit a Mönchengladbach fan bus during the game in Augsburg. “The Bavarian state government is stonewalling”MP Max Deisenhofer from Alliance 90/The Greens criticizes the answers to his question.
The answers available to the Sportschau do not provide any relevant insight. They reflect the status of the Bavarian riot police had already announced on August 24thfive days after the incident on the sidelines of the Bundesliga game between FC Augsburg and Borussia Mönchengladbach.
At that time it was said: “According to current knowledge, immediately before the shot was fired, police officers sprayed each other with water due to the high outside temperatures. Why the shooter then grabbed a weapon and the shot was fired is still the subject of investigation.”
With this very reference to ongoing investigations, the Bavarian state government, formed by the CSU and the Free Voters, refuses to provide any more specific information. The answer says that “after careful consideration” it was decided that the “legitimate interests in the conduct of criminal investigations” should be classified higher than “Parliament’s interest in information” and therefore the public.
“The Bavarian state government is stonewalling and apparently does not want to reveal any further information until the proceedings are completed.”said Deisenhofer to the sports show, “For me, many questions remain unanswered about this disturbing incident.”
The most pressing: Why was the shot fired, according to the police “inadvertently” had been delivered and smashed into an empty bus for Gladbach fans?
The process will probably not be completed until 2024
The 36-year-old politician Deisenhofer does not expect the investigation to be completed until 2024. The request should be made repeatedly in order to receive answers that are satisfactory to him.
Injured police officers are included in statistics
The police officer who fired the shot was suspended less than a week after the incident. Like three colleagues, he suffered a blast, and another officer was treated for an abrasion. All five police officers are included in statistics, on the basis of which the annual report of the “Central Information Center for Sports Operations” (ZIS) is created. The Bavarian government confirmed this in its answers, which are expected to be published in December.
“Every injured police officer is of course one too many. But you have to look closely at these statistics and differentiate who is injured by whom. Were they fans? Or was it the police officers among themselves?”said Deisenhofer.
In the ZIS annual report for the period from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022 700 injuries are listed in connection with games in the top three German football leagues. These included 123 police officers and 60 stewards. The majority is divided into “bystanders/injured parties” (354) and “troublemakers” (163).