Riots and looting in Stuttgart 2020

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View from the street of the heavily damaged EuroShop on Marienstraße. The shop windows are smashed. The street in front of the store is covered with broken glass, ruined furnishings and battered products.
Badly damaged EuroShop on Marienstraße

The riots and looting in Stuttgart occurred on the night of June 20-21, 2020 in Stuttgart-Mitte . The starting point is said to have been a drug control. The focus was on Schlossplatz and the Königstrasse shopping street .

prehistory

In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic , bans on events, contacts and assemblies were issued, which also practically brought Stuttgart's nightlife to a standstill. After gradual easing, there have been an increasing number of groups meeting in the city center for public celebrations for about four weeks, which is why the police presence had been increased. There had already been a conflict three weeks earlier. In the night from May 30th to May 31st, around 500 people were on the Schloßplatz and disregarded Corona requirements . When the police stepped in, stones and bottles were thrown at the officers.

The night of the crime

In the upper castle garden , a popular place for partiers in summer, police officers carried out a drug check on a 17-year-old at around 11:30 p.m. According to the police , around 200 to 300 people showed solidarity and stood against the police. It was only when the emergency services were requested to use force and pepper spray to force the rampaging crowd away from the intervening policemen in the direction of Schlossplatz. In the riots that followed, groups of mostly young men rioted around midnight, including those coming from Eckensee in the Upper Palace Gardens, through the city center. They smashed shop windows and looted shops on Schlossplatz, in Königstrasse, the main shopping street, and in Marienstrasse. Around 40 shops were affected, nine were looted to varying degrees, causing damage in the six to seven-figure range. Twelve patrol cars were damaged, some seriously, 32 police officers were injured and one police officer suffered a broken wrist. Rioters threw poles, posts, bottles and cobblestones. A sixteen-year-old German is said to have kicked a student who was already lying on the ground in the head. The ambulance service took care of six injured people, and a few more went to hospital for treatment themselves. Rescue workers were hindered and attacked; at least one ambulance was badly damaged. According to the police, a total of 400–500 people were involved at the height of the rioting. 25 people were arrested that night. According to Police Vice President Thomas Berger, twelve of the arrested were German citizens , three of whom had a migration background . The rest were citizens of Bosnia, Portugal, Iran, Iraq, Croatia, Somalia and Afghanistan, among others.

Some groups of offenders shouted, as can be seen on video recordings, " Allahu akbar ", "fuck the police", "fuck the system" and " ACAB " ("All Cops Are Bastards"). The police rule out any political or religious motivation for the riots. Some perpetrators masked themselves with balaclavas or other items of clothing. The police only regained control around 4:30 a.m. according to their own statements. They pulled together a large contingent of around 280 officials from all over Baden-Württemberg , who stayed in the city the morning after the night.

The Stuttgart fire brigade and the technical relief organization secured shop windows and helped with the clean-up work.

consequences

Prosecution

To clear up the crimes, the police set up the (first 40, then 75, then) 111-member investigation team "Eckensee", the largest that has ever operated in Stuttgart. On behalf of the Stuttgart Public Prosecutor's Office, she is investigating, among other things, suspicion of a serious breach of the peace , attempted manslaughter , dangerous bodily harm , assault on enforcement officers and the particularly serious case of theft . The police also set up a notification portal where witnesses can report and upload videos.

On the night of the crime, the police provisionally arrested 23 men and two women between the ages of 14 and 33, 21 of whom were drunk at the time of the crime. 15 of the temporarily arrested were known to the police, including two foreigners who were obliged to leave the country. A total of 37 suspects were identified by July 1, 2020, 14 of whom are in custody , including one woman.

On July 9th, the Stuttgart Police President Franz Lutz spoke in the Stuttgart City Council of "nationwide research at registry offices to determine the migration background (individual suspects)". The announcement was preceded by an application from the CDU local council group on July 3, 2020, in which u. a. The question was asked: "How many of the arrested are Germans without a migration background?" The criminal police finally identified 50 suspects by the end of July 2020, 28 of them from Stuttgart itself and 16 from the surrounding area. Two were women. Of the 50, 8 had no migration background, another 20 were not German citizens; they came from Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Portugal, Croatia, Greece, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Poland, Romania, Morocco, Somalia and Latvia. The background of two people has not yet been clarified. Several of the suspects were tolerated persons who had come to the country in the wake of the refugee crisis in Germany in 2015/2016 .

By the end of August, 79 suspects had been identified.

Greater police presence

In order to prevent further riots, the police increased their presence in Stuttgart. Hundreds of them were deployed in the city center on the following weekends . In addition, water cannons were available as an “ ultima ratio ”.

On July 2, 2020, the city of Stuttgart concluded a security partnership with the state of Baden-Württemberg in order to improve security in the medium term , for example through presence patrols, priority actions and video surveillance .

Reactions

police

Stuttgart police chief Franz Lutz said that he had not seen such events in 46 years of service. In addition to alcohol consumption, he cited the reason that, for some of the young men, violence and disrespect for the police were apparently part of self-portrayal on social media . The city of Stuttgart is planning a committee chaired by the mayor and the police chief. A ban on alcohol in public places and stronger video surveillance of these places will be discussed. Hans-Jürgen Kirstein, State Head of the Police Union , said: “It is unacceptable that there are massive attacks on colleagues and that shops are damaged and looted ... This is not just an attack on people and things, but also to our constitutional state! ”Ralf Kusterer, head of the German Police Union, spoke of“ juvenile and adolescent offenders with a predominantly immigrant background ”, whom the police have increasingly employed in recent weeks and who have long been known to the city administration.

The research announced by Lutz at registry offices to determine a possible migration background of the suspects with German nationality was controversial . Journalist Johannes Schneider described this as structural racism . While the Greens in the Stuttgart municipal council were irritated, Prime Minister Kretschmann requested a report from Interior Minister Strobl on those involved and possible motives for the crime, since one had to look closely at the social background of the offenders and their supporters in order to be able to decide how the politicians could react. Federal Interior Minister Seehofer also stated that inquiries into the origins of the parents of criminals were appropriate, as the incidents involved an “excess of violence” and a “new criminal phenomenon”, which should also be carefully examined under “aspects of prevention”. Consideration of the sociological environment is the police standard in such cases.

politics

Stuttgart's Lord Mayor Fritz Kuhn condemned the riots: "This is a sad Sunday for Stuttgart," he wrote on Twitter . Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann spoke of a “brutal outbreak of violence”. He added: “These acts against people and property are criminal acts that should be consistently prosecuted and convicted. The pictures from downtown Stuttgart cannot leave us indifferent. ”Interior Minister Thomas Strobl spoke of excesses of a“ previously unprecedented quality. ”The investigations are still at the very beginning. One will proceed against the perpetrators “with all available means of the constitutional state.” In an interview with the Bild-Zeitung , Strobl demanded that “one should not overdo it with multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has its clear limits in the applicable laws ”, there is“ at least no discount in Stuttgart and Baden-Württemberg ”. The SPD in the state parliament spoke of "civil war-like conditions". Like the FDP, she requested a special session of parliament. FDP parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke called on Strobl to report in detail on "the measures taken to protect society and the police". The green member of the Bundestag Cem Özdemir from Stuttgart warned that young people “especially those with a migration background will slip away from us”.

The federal government condemned the riots and looting. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said there was nothing to justify them. Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer visited Stuttgart on the Monday after the events. He described the riots as an "alarm signal for the rule of law" and called for a "severe punishment" for the perpetrators. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier stood behind the police officers and said: "Violence, vandalism, sheer brutality - as seen in Stuttgart at the weekend - must be prosecuted and punished with all the severity of the rule of law."

science

Police scientist Rafael Behr from the Hamburg Police Academy disagreed with statements made by politicians and sometimes described them as exaggerations. There have been outbreaks of violence in public spaces before, some of which were worse: "When I think of 1962, the famous Schwabing riots , more has happened than it is now in Stuttgart." The criminologist Christian Pfeiffer sees the coronavirus restrictions as a cause : "There is a lot of pent-up anger there" because there are "many losers from Corona". In addition, people who were "as if locked up" were more aggressive. The conflict and violence researcher Andreas Zick calls it misleading to see the migration background as an essential factor in the escalation of violence. Rather, a spontaneous group dynamic of young people who developed a common enemy image towards the police should be assumed . However, he emphasized that youth violence is more likely to be reversed. The political scientist and youth researcher Bernd Holthusen ( German Youth Institute ) also spoke of a “heterogeneous group” that acted very differently and achieved “greater public attention”. In addition, adolescents have "been largely forgotten in the Corona debate" because their "life situations and the changes in everyday life" were ignored.

Similar cases

On the night of July 19, 2020, there were riots on Opernplatz in Frankfurt , in which police officers who originally intervened due to a fight were attacked from the crowd of people celebrating there. Parallels were drawn with the events in Stuttgart. The Frankfurt police chief Gerhard Bereswill saw the two incidents as examples of what, in his opinion, had been increasing violence against emergency services for years.

Web links

Commons : Riots and Looting in Stuttgart 2020  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

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  5. ↑ Information portal for photos and videos of evidence from the night of June 21st, 2020 - Stuttgart police headquarters. Retrieved June 26, 2020 .
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  25. ↑ Rüdiger Soldt: "Those are the suspects of the night of the riot in Stuttgart" faz.net of July 23, 2020
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  33. ↑ What is structural racism? This is structural racism! ; zeit.de of July 12, 2020, accessed on July 13, 2020
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  36. ↑ youtube.com June 22, 2020: "Don't overdo it with multiculturalism" - BILD boss Reichelt in an interview with Thomas Strobl (Stuttgart)
  37. ↑ jungefreiheit.de June 23, 2020: Strobl zu Stuttgart: Shouldn't overdo it with multiculturalism
  38. ^ Riot in Stuttgart: injured and looting. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . June 21, 2020, accessed June 22, 2020 .
  39. ↑ Özdemir on the riots in Stuttgart: Young people with a migration background slip away from us. Retrieved June 25, 2020 .
  40. ^ Stuttgart - Federal Government condemns vandalism and violence against police officers. In: Deutschlandfunk . June 22, 2020, accessed June 22, 2020 .
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  43. ↑ Horror after the Stuttgart Chaos Night ; süddeutsche.de of June 22, 2020; accessed on June 24, 2020
  44. ^ Riots in Stuttgart: How did the violence start? ; wdr.de of June 22, 2020; accessed on June 25, 2020
  45. ↑ "Young people were largely forgotten in the corona crisis" ; spiegel.de from June 25, accessed on June 25, 2020
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