Street battle
A street battle is a confrontation between groups of mostly different opinions, which is fought in the open air with physical violence , but without military weapons . If military armament is used, one speaks more of combat operations .
In contrast to the street battle, which primarily consist of conflicts between individuals, called riots , riots and riots and looting and vandalism , often with arson accompanied.
Street battles are conflicts between social groups, for example between political, religious or ethnic groups or members of subcultures , among themselves or with police units, but street battles can also occur on the sidelines of sporting events. In Germany, when it comes to a street battle, it is primarily demonstrators or football hooligans and police units that are involved.
Reasons / occasions
Street battles can break out both planned and unexpected. The argument is usually preceded by a situation of tension. The escalation can take place spontaneously, after a provocation on the other side, through the use of agents provocateurs or also according to plan.
Rival groups often fight each other on the basis of political, social, religious or ethnic motives. Sometimes demonstrations that have started peacefully turn into street battles as opposing groups try to disrupt the demonstration.
Examples
In the course of revolutions , uprisings and revolts , such as the March Revolution , there were repeated barricades fighting. Heavy street battles took place between supporters of the Communists and National Socialists in the Weimar Republic . B. during the SA march in Braunschweig in January 1931. At this time there were no effective police forces, and the riots were carried out openly and led to an outcome with a shifted balance of power. There were winners and losers.
In the 1970s , as a result of the student revolt , street battles broke out in which the police forces were equipped with increasingly specialized equipment. In the 1980s , in addition to the squatter scene, the resistance was mostly ecologically or peace-politically motivated ( Runway West , opponents of nuclear power ).
Since the 1990s there have been an increasing number of anti- globalization and right-wing extremist demonstrations and counter-demonstrations by the Antifa , some of which end in violence. Other examples are race riots such as the riots in Los Angeles in 1992 or religious disputes and the suppression of democratic movements in dictatorships . The angry and aggressive crowd is also known as the mob .
An example of this are the street battles between the police and the autonomous community that take place every year on May 1st in Berlin-Kreuzberg . A special feature of the riots in Kreuzberg is the 2005 " water battle " and the 1981 Tuwat Congress in Berlin. Further examples are the Chaostage in Hanover, as well as the street battles due to unresolved political, social and religious conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Palestinian Territories . During the street battles on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 , globalization critic Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by a police officer.
The evacuation of houses or blocks by the police often leads to serious arguments between the squatters and the security forces. An example of such a house eviction is the evacuation of Mainzer Straße , which is considered to be the largest police operation in post-war Berlin.
In France, in 2005, socially disadvantaged young people had weeks of violent riots in almost all large cities - especially in the suburbs of Paris ( Pariser riots 2005 ). Also in 2005 there were serious riots in Belize because of planned tax increases ( riots in Belize 2005 ).
One week before the start of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm in 2007 , during a large-scale demonstration in Rostock , serious clashes broke out between several thousand left-wing autonomists and the police forces present. Cars and barricades were set on fire, shop windows and the entrance area of a savings bank branch were destroyed, and other property damage was committed.
equipment
On the part of the police, batons , tonfas , pepper spray , tear gas and water cannons are mainly used in clashes with demonstrators in Germany . In other countries, the police also use rubber bullets , shock grenades and firearms, among other things .
The armament of civilian participants in the riot usually consists of sticks, stones, slingshots, fireworks and Molotov cocktails . Improvised or self-made firearms are also said to have been part of the armament of insurgents.
Protective equipment is used by both sides. This includes shields , helmets , respirators and other body protection. In Germany, it is forbidden for demonstrators to use protective clothing or other protective equipment ( passive armament ) to protect themselves against the use of direct coercion by the police. It is also forbidden to make it more difficult to establish identity by masking ( prohibition of masking ). Both objects that serve to protect identity and those that protect physical integrity are designated by the legislature as protective weapons .
For certain measures, such as the arrest of individual demonstrators, the evidence preservation and arrest units of the riot police , the support command USK in Bavaria and commands of the federal police are responsible in Germany. At the Austrian police , these tasks are performed by the operational units of the regional police headquarters . Paramilitary and military units are also deployed in other countries.
Legal
Active participation in a street battle in Germany usually already constitutes a criminal offense of breach of the peace , a criminal offense against public order . On an individual basis, this often goes hand in hand with further crimes such as resistance to law enforcement officers , bodily harm or damage to property .
It is virtually impossible for the police to prosecute all the crimes committed in the conditions of a street battle. The focus is usually on the immediate restoration of public order through de-escalation or violent dissolution of the excesses. For criminal prosecution, the police often try to identify individuals who are particularly violent behavior through observers or video surveillance and either to pick them out from the crowd on site or to identify them by means of subsequent search measures. During a riot, special officers of the so-called evidence preservation and arrest units (BFE or USK in Bavaria) are deployed, as well as civil forces whose targeted attacks against individual rioters are also intended to have a deterrent effect on the others (but can also have an escalating effect in practice ).
In order to avoid riots in the first place , the police repeatedly surrounded the black block of the autonomous people or an entire demonstration or formed a so-called wandering basin around them . As the example of the Hamburger Kessel shows, which brought the responsible police officers in 1986 a warning for deprivation of liberty , such a measure can be legally problematic.
