Knives, hammers, screwdrivers – again and again the accused, visitors and witnesses bring more or less hidden weapons and dangerous objects to the Berlin courts.
As became known at the end of last year, there were around 20,000 such cases in Berlin in 2022. Now the opposition CDU wanted to know from the red-green-red Senate how employees in the courts can protect themselves from possible attacks.
According to the Senate, all prison guards who are entrusted with security-related tasks – including admission controls, demonstration services, executions – are equipped with the following utensils: handcuffs, gloves with reinforced stab protection for checkpoints, gloves with cut protection on the palms of the hands for identity checks, baton, pepper spray, protective vest, Walkie talkie, flashlight. This emerges from a response from the Secretary of State for Justice Ibrahim Kanalan (non-party, for the left) to the request of the CDU legal expert Alexander J. Herrmann, which is available to the Tagesspiegel in advance.
The State Secretary also writes: “The employees of the Berlin judiciary are regularly offered appropriate training in communication, de-escalation, conflict management, self-protection, self-assertion and dealing with difficult audiences.”
There are also further training courses on certain conflict groups, including: “Forms of structural crime”, “Dealing with right-wing extremist perpetrators”, “Dealing with imprisoned people with intellectual disabilities”, but also on “Drug addiction and mental disorders”.
Anyone who enters a court building with a gun is a danger to the employees
CDU justice expert Herrmann
CDU judicial expert Herrmann is not enough with Kanalan’s answer: “The number of investigations initiated into violations of the Weapons Act at the entrances to the courts has almost doubled from 2020 to 2022. Nevertheless, the 17 investigations given are few in view of the around 20,000 cases of weapons and other dangerous objects discovered in courts last year.”
The illegal carrying of weapons should not become a habit, especially not in courthouses, Herrmann said, in such cases a procedure must be initiated ex officio: “Every citizen who enters a courthouse with a weapon or a dangerous object represents an objective danger for the people working there.”
At least bullying, and sometimes also tangible threats, have been made in recent years, especially by men and women from the clan milieu and occasionally from the Reich citizen scene. Law enforcement officials reported.
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