WEGA (special unit)

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The application unit WEGA (the former name W ienna E insatz g roup A larmabteilung ) is a special unit of the Austrian police in the federal capital Vienna . It reports to the Vienna State Police Directorate, more precisely to the Department for Special Forces (ASE). The WEGA is requested primarily for operations with an increased degree of risk. Even if the WEGA has been reformed many times over the years, it is the oldest special police unit in Austria.

In 2009, the WEGA was requested as a support unit for the execution of 785 arrests. The special unit prevented the use of weapons 350 times by using physical strength. The gun was used 29 times. A shot was fired. 17 violent criminals were arrested as part of the Great Security and Order Service (GSOD). In 2008 WEGA had around 250 civil servants.

assignment

Wega officer with ram

The WEGA is considered an operative, not an investigative unit. The area of ​​responsibility is divided into the following areas:

  • barricaded people
  • Suicidal
  • Raids and searches where resistance is expected
  • risky arrests
  • other missions where resistance is to be expected
  • Operations that require officers with rope engineering training
  • Operations that require officers with police diving training
  • Dissolution of squatting
  • Attack troop operations as part of the GSOD
  • Property protection of particularly endangered facilities

The interventions are carried out both by the criminal service and by colleagues from the police inspections. Attack troops in the GSOD arise during violent demonstrations or riots at football games. In these cases, it is necessary to filter individual violent criminals from the crowd and to take them into custody through tactical skills and a determined appearance.

organization

The equipment and the structure of the unit are based on that of various US-American SWAT teams (e.g. NYPD ESU). Patrol duty is provided in specially equipped sector vehicles in two-man teams. The big advantage of the sector strips is that a fully equipped access team is available within a very short time. In addition, in Vienna all tasks that exceed the normal risk limits of the police, but which do not yet fall within the scope of the task area of ​​the Cobra Task Force or which cannot intervene in time, are left to the WEGA.

Continuous further and advanced training is guaranteed within the framework of the service. If the WEGA officers do not provide field service as a sector patrol, they are called in for training in order to train their skills in the field of shooting, operational technology and operational tactics. Depending on the occasion, training focuses are of course also set. In October 2007, WEGA officials represented the Republic of Austria at the trinational GSOD seminar . At this five-day seminar, which was attended by police officers from Germany and Switzerland in addition to the WEGA, both theoretical and practical experience in the police security service (with a view to the European Football Championship in 2008 ) was exchanged.

In the provincial capitals of Graz ( special services - Graz sector ) and Linz ( special services - Linz sector ) there is an office each that fulfills a similar task area as WEGA.

Recruitment and training

Abseiling exercise from the Vienna City Hall
Officials practicing the human pyramid

In order to become a member of the WEGA, the minimum level of field service experience required is one year of practice in a police station, and a selection test must be passed:
This includes a 3000 m run, shooting test with the Glock 17 , the so-called "6 test" ( Pull-ups, standing long jump, box boomerang run, sit-ups, stair climbing test and push-ups), a tactical course under physical and psychological stress that has to be completed within 20.5 seconds and in which a doll weighing around 50 kilograms has to be rescued from the danger zone . In addition, applicants go through a psychological selection process in which values, emotional stability, ability to work in a team and motivation are checked.

Successful completion of these tests, however, is not sufficient for admission; the applicants are ranked according to their results; Based on this ranking, applicants are then invited to the six-month basic training course (WEGA BAL). In this course, the shooting, tactical and self-defense skills already acquired in normal police training are trained even more intensively and additionally expanded. After this basic training, the new members of the special unit are divided into the six existing companies and can then apply for the following special training courses: rope technology, medic, personal protection, diving, safety guards, technicians, problematic deportations by air and special vehicle or water cannon drivers.

equipment

The primary weapon used by the Austrian police is the Glock 17 pistol with an additional laser light module. The Steyr StG 77 A2 is also carried as a long weapon in the sector patrol and surveillance service . Further weapons are the multi-purpose pistol MZP ( Heckler & Koch HK69 ) for shooting tear gas , the Taser X2, baton ( Tonfa ), pepper spray, handcuffs and possibly a pair of footcuffs in the emergency vehicle.

The headgear for members of the WEGA is a wine-red beret, which is also common internationally for special units, officers have various models of protective vests and helmets available as protective equipment that are tailored to different situations.

In addition to sector and civil vehicles of the types VW Sharan , VW Touareg and VW Passat , the WEGA fleet also includes special vehicles such as the special vehicle 4 (TM-170) from Rheinmetall as an armored emergency vehicle, several water cannons and so-called " emergency vehicles " with additional equipment. The emergency vehicles transport heavy equipment such as B. chainsaws, rammers or hydraulic spreading devices, which are used, among other things, for forced entry into objects.

history

WEGA badge

The events in the course of the fire in the Palace of Justice led to the establishment of the alarm department from the ranks of the Vienna Security Guard in 1928 . It had been shown that the security guard without a helmet and rifle, without rubber truncheons and with the saber used at the time, which turned out to be too long, could only intervene inefficiently during violent demonstrations. There was also a lack of appropriate training for conventional security guards. Since there were many officers with frontline experience in the ranks of the police in the years after the First World War, recruiting was relatively easy. These police officers were also ready to perform the paramilitary drills and maneuvers.

After the Second World War, the unit known today as WEGA developed from the standby department that was organizationally set up in 1955 and was renamed the alarm department again in 1959 . This consisted of two task forces, so-called EKOs. Developments in the 1970s (1973 attack by a Palestinian terrorist squad on a transport of Jewish emigrants, 1975 murder of the Turkish ambassador by Armenian terrorists in Vienna and attack on the OPEC conference with hostage-taking by a terrorist squad under Carlos) led to a rethink in the interior department instead and units ( Gendarmerie Einsatzkommando , WEGA, Kranich ) were set up in order to be prepared against the increased risk of terrorist attacks. In 1994 the service system within the department was changed to 6-group scheduled service. There was another change in 2001 with the division into WEGA PEK and WEGA MEK. The last organizational change so far took place in 2005 and the department has since been run under the name of the Einsatzeinheit (EE) WEGA in the Special Forces Department of LPK Vienna.

As of June 30, 2017, 200 Austrian police officers, including 20 members of the Cobra commando as well as 70 WEGA officers, supported the German police at the G20 summit in Hamburg .

Incidents

In April 2006 the Gambier Bakary J. was severely ill-treated in a warehouse by WEGA officers after a failed deportation following a final conviction for drug possession. After interventions by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture , Manfred Nowak , the incident became public. Because of torturing a prisoner , the four officers involved were sentenced to several months of conditional prison term after prolonged stages of appeal through disciplinary, Appeals Commission and Administrative Court in 2012 three parties were dismissed from the police force.

In June 2013, a mentally ill person was killed during an operation involving the use of firearms . Before that, the man threatened craftsmen and attacked police officers with a jackknife. When Wega forces opened the apartment, the man stabbed a WEGA officer, whereupon four members of the special unit fired 20 shots at the person. The Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office started investigations against the police officers for negligent homicide under particularly dangerous circumstances . The public prosecutor's office granted the officers self-defense and emergency aid in June 2014 and the proceedings were discontinued.

Media reception

In 2010, TV producer Andreas Mannsberger produced a 9-part report series for the Austrian private television broadcaster ATV . The series of reports was broadcast from January 2011 under the title WEGA - The Police Special Unit .

In 2012 the Austrian feature film Void by Stefan A. Lukacs was released . The film is based on the events surrounding the Bakary J. case and was broadcast on ORF in 2013. In 2017 Stefan A. Lukacs made another film with Cops on the subject of WEGA, the film was awarded the audience award for feature film and the award for socially relevant film at the 2018 Max Ophüls Film Festival.

literature

See also

Web links

Commons : WEGA  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ WEGA as "Libero der Polizei" orf.at
  2. ↑ The new WEGA pdf, bmi.gv.at, accessed on July 1, 2013
  3. ↑ Article (PDF; 280 kB) in the magazine “Public Security” on the subject of “Choice with agony”. (Edition 01/02 2008)
  4. ^ MEK and PEK ( Memento of March 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Reorganization 2001
  5. ^ Die Neue WEGA ( Memento of January 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 130 kB) Reorganization 2005
  6. ^ Christian Unger, Julia Emmrich: Austrian "Cobra" in action . In: Berliner Morgenpost , July 9, 2017, accessed on July 10, 2017.
  7. ↑ Nobody apologized to me ( memento from October 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ So far no compensation for Bakary J. In: wien.orf.at. May 17, 2012, accessed December 1, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Bakary J .: "I have seen death". In: kurier.at. June 16, 2012, accessed December 24, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Torture: Reality in 90 percent of all countries diepresse.com; Full of torture fm4.orf.at
  11. ↑ Manfred Nowak: Torture - the everydayness of the incomprehensible. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-218-00833-4 .
  12. ↑ Chronology of the Causa Bakary J .; Article retrieved from orf.at on April 25, 2012
  13. ↑ Case Bakary J .: Three police officers now released derstandard.at, April 24, 2012
  14. ^ According to Bakary J .: Future automatic loss of office wien.orf.at, accessed on August 17, 2012
  15. ↑ WEGA kills man: Investigations are ongoing orf.at, accessed on June 29, 2013
  16. ↑ Investigations against WEGA officers after a fatal police operation derstandard.at
  17. ↑ Police officers shot: proceedings discontinued wien.orf.at
  18. ↑ WEGA - The special unit of the police on the internet presence of the television station ATV.
  19. ↑ DiePresse.com : ATV shows a series of reports on the Wega police unit . Article from January 5, 2011.
  20. ↑ orf.at: Max Ophüls Prize: Police drama "Cops" honored three times . Article from January 27, 2018, accessed on January 28, 2018.
  21. ↑ diepresse.com: Wega in the film visor . Article of August 28, 2017, accessed on January 28, 2018.