This story came up today via our local town police 'blotter' (for Wiesbaden). Cops say over the weekend (Saturday night)....that they had a regular foot-patrol (two cops) walking down through the shopping district. It's some point around midnight.
Here is some argument brewing and a brawl starting up between two groups (six folks each). Normally, German guys don't brawl much (unless there's women in the discussion). So you can probably assume these folks weren't German in nature.
Two folks run off early in this episode. Cops kinda stop the mess from escalating but they want a 'Q and A' session....to explain who started what. Meanwhile, they've called for reinforcements.
Minutes pass, and at least one guy seems to return to the brawl area, and he's got a machete.
Yes, a machete.
Cops apparently have the reinforcements arriving and they direct the machete 'kid' to drop it. The cops more or less suggest to put the machete down.....he doesn't get 'it' (maybe there was a translation problem here (we never covered that word in the intensive language course). So the cops more or less....took him to the ground.
I asked my wife (German in nature) if machetes were commonplace (noting we didn't have one in our house), and she responded by asking why in the world would we have a machete.
Charges? Well....possessing and carrying a machete in public....is a problem. I'm guessing he is looking at a misdemeanor but I doubt if he gets any real jail-time.
But this brings me to the reality of walking around the center of Wiesbaden (a place I deemed fairly safe) and this threat of some idiot carrying a machete around. If the cops hadn't been there? Well....yeah, some guy might have been whacked and this would be a front-page story. The cops? They have to sitting there and wondering....just how stupid are people getting to react to something by a threat of a machete.
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