I've talked about two serious crimes in the past four days, and each has a public reaction going on in Germany.
Things have kinda unraveled over in Augsburg over the past few days since this local fireman was assaulted in the Christmas Market area of town, and died from the injuries.
What can be generally said is that his group (four folks over the age of forty) were attempting to sip gluhwein, and some teenage young men group (mostly all in age group of 17) were probably a bit drunk and didn't take the suggestion to tone down their voices. A fight started up.....with the fireman pushed to the cobblestones, and died from the concussion.
The teens involved? Yeah, criminal records. The street area (about 300 feet from the train station)? Known for alcoholic issues and drug sales.
Since that Friday episode.....a fair amount of criticism has been leveled against the police in town. Why?
Well, this gets around to the nature of 'acceptance' of the police in this district, and that they 'allowed' (I emphasize what locals have said) the bad boy behavior to multiply and expand out.
This came up today via a news piece in Focus magazine.
The local police chief came out to the public radio station and did a interview, trying to get people to buy into the story that the police do routine patrols and correct as necessary. He has the correct point in that the police aren't there to correct bad-boy behavior.....they are strictly there to enforce laws. If you are caught with drugs....you get dragged into a court, face a judge, and the judge is the one who is holding power over the bad-boys.
The public problem? They see a needless death, with a history attached to each one of the juveniles, and nothing ever came to resolve their bad-boy behavior. Even now.....the 'kids' will go to a juvenile court system, and likely be out (even in the worst case) in five years. Then what?
As for the second episode....this being a stabbing of a policeman (luckily, he's not dead) in the Munich train-station....it has come out that this 'nutcase' had actually been a in-house patient at a regional mental facility. Somewhere in the handling of his case with the mental experts....the guy made it clear....he wanted to harm (stab) a policeman (any policeman).
The experts and authority over the guy? Right now, they are avoiding any public comment, but it's obvious to the public that the minute the guy conveyed a threat....his lock-down should have been extra-long-term (maybe permanent), and instead....they let the guy go back out on the streets.
All of this leads back to the public perception that safety isn't at the same level that they were seeing from thirty and forty years ago. 'Holes' in the system? The public may eventually get around to this issue and it might become some political hot-potato. All this chatter about more policemen being hired (the 10,000)? Well....if they just walk a beat and never detain or put threatening people into a secure facility....what good does the hiring do you?
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