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Only a few perpetrators have been identified by name after the New Year’s Eve riots. Demands for harsh penalties are likely to be difficult to implement.
Few identified rioters, but a lot of reports against unknown persons for criminal offenses and administrative offenses – that is the police balance sheet two days after the New Year’s Eve riots in Essen with three injured firefighters, just as many police officers who suffered injuries, and a whole series of wanton and massive damage to property .
Police spokesman Pascal Schwarz-Pettinato was not able to finally say on Monday how many investigations were initiated after the riots, especially in Huttrop and Freisenbruch, but also at Borbecker Markt and in Altenessen and Katernberg. Especially since it cannot be ruled out that officers of the hundred, who were on permanent duty at the turn of the year to avert acute danger, will subsequently put one or the other event on record.
“Several dozen small groups” attracted attention as rioters
According to the police, there were “several dozen small groups” who appeared in the districts as disruptors and rioters – mostly young people who “according to the visual impression have a migration background,” said the police spokesman.
They ignited pyrotechnics under parked cars, shot at passing cars, regardless of whether they were private vehicles or those of the police and fire brigade, but also aimed rockets at emergency services, only to then “disappear in the anonymity of the masses”, mostly undetected.
So it is quite possible that in the end only a few perpetrators can actually be punished and the current demand of the police union (GdP) that “every targeted attack on a person in uniform must lead to investigations and a court hearing with a harsh sentence”, at least in Essen should largely come to nothing.
Against this background, many may remember the turn of the year 2020/2021, when young people marauded at the Altenessen market and boasted about videos of their deeds on relevant internet platforms. The punishment followed anything but on the foot.
When a lot of work brings little success
Around half of the eight people accused by the public prosecutor’s office of serious breaches of the peace could still not be identified two years later. A motion report is the last straw for prosecutors.
Even if this example illustrates that a lot of work ultimately produces little success, the police have no choice. The investigators will also have to process the criminal charges from the most recent New Year’s Eve. After the seizure of two alarm pistols, these are violations of the Weapons Act. On the other hand, “a lot of bodily harm”, according to Schwarz-Pettinato, also attempted dangerous bodily harm, for example when pyrotechnics were used in a targeted manner against people without injuring them, as well as a whole range of property damage.
A series of displays following acts of resistance
Several panes of bus stop houses were destroyed, especially in Katernberg and Altenessen, or bulky waste such as waste containers were burned. The investigators will also be busy for a while with a series of complaints about acts of resistance against officials.
Incidentally, the largest group did not meet in Huttrop on the night of the turn of the year, but in the city center. While the riots took their course before the eyes of around 300 mostly male people at the water tower, around 900 greeted the New Year peacefully on Kennedyplatz. The large majority of them were people with Arabic roots, Schwarz-Pettinato knows.
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