Sunday, January 20, 2019

Gelsenkirchen 'Mob' Story

This morning, if you follow regional news in Germany.....there's a cop report from last night (Saturday evening) that might disturb some folks.  Focus, the German news magazine, reports the basics to the episode.

In NW Germany.....in Gelsenkirchen....all heck broke loose at the train station in town.

For those unfamiliar with Gelsenkirchen....it's an urbanized area between Dortmund and Munster.  A hundred years ago, this was primarily a coal region and a working-man's town.  Today?  It's become an urban magnet for migrants, with job potential. 

As for the incident?  Roughly 20 to 30 'teens' went into riot-chaos....attacking the mass transit workers and passengers.  Part of this 'game' involved taking fire extinguishers from the walls and activating them onto the crowds. At some point, the mob even picked up rocks and began to throw them at the mass transit folks. 

When the cops finally arrived....they were only able to grab and hold onto three of them.  Reports were written up and the parents called.  One can assume that some social welfare official and a judge will sit down in the next week or two to discuss matters with the parents.

The problem here is that Germans tend to view these mob-like events as a disintegrating piece of society.  Germans have confidence that you can go out in public (in the evening hours)....use mass transit to travel from their home to some movie or social-event, and then travel in a safe fashion.  If some 5th-grade mentality behavior disrupts that view....then someone needs to be assigned 'blame'. 

The fact that the witnesses suggest that most of the 'mob' were non-German?  Well, that kinda tells part of the story.  The sad thing is that while 99-percent of teenage migrant kids are observing practical rules of life....it's this other 1-percent group who are making a bad name for the vast majority. 

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