Tough penalties demanded for attacks on emergency services

Crime - Tough penalties demanded for attacks on emergency services

In view of the tens of thousands of attacks on police officers, firefighters and rescue workers, politicians and associations are calling for tougher action. "We need more respect for others and consistent punishment for those who don't play by the rules. Behind every uniform is a person," said North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) to the German Press Agency.

The President of the German Fire Service Association, Karl-Heinz Banse, called such acts an attack against the state. There are indications that the number of attacks will increase in 2023.

Demand for more respect

Banse also called for society to show more respect for emergency services. "The state must ensure that those who do this are punished with the full force of the law. There is still a lack of respect," he said. His association recently conducted a survey to find out how many firefighters had been exposed to violence. The results will be presented today.

Nationwide figures on assaults in the past year are not yet available. The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior has already stated: "However, there is probably a further increase in the number of cases of violence against emergency services." In Rhineland-Palatinate, according to the state Ministry of the Interior, 2151 police officers were recorded as victims of violent crimes in the first half of this year.

This means that 2023 police officers were affected. In the first six months, 16 victims were recorded in the fire department and 112 in the other emergency services. According to the ministry, the figures relate to victims of investigations concluded during this period. The time of the crime could therefore also be before 2023. In 2022, there were more than 4300 victims in total.

Lower Saxony expected an increase in violent crimes this year. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the state recorded a low three-digit increase in attacks on the police as of the end of October compared to the same time last year.

There have been massive attacks

In Berlin, the police recently assumed that there would be around 15 percent more attacks on police officers and 30 percent more attacks on firefighters in 2023 compared to the previous year. Last year, 2291 police officers were victims of an assault in the capital. Nationwide, there were more than 42,700 acts of violence against police officers in 2022 - 7.9 percent more than in 2021, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office.

The inhibition threshold for "attacking and injuring people in uniform" has fallen steadily, said NRW Interior Minister Reul. "This is unacceptable." The topic will be widely discussed again before the turn of the year. The background to this is the massive attacks on emergency services on New Year's Eve a year ago. It was only in June that a young man in Berlin was sentenced to eight months in prison on probation because the local court found that he had deliberately thrown a firecracker in the direction of a police officer.

Berlin's police commissioner Barbara Slowik told the German Press Agency that the quality of attacks on emergency services last year was new, "for example when rescue workers were lured into suspected ambushes and attacked".

"For some young people, life as a criminal is obviously a desirable lifestyle," said the deputy head of the Hamburg Police Union (GdP), Lars Osburg. This can be seen in the young people's behavior towards the police. Gangsta rap also serves criminal gangs to recruit new members. "We repeat our thesis that so-called gangsta rap contributes significantly to this development," he said.

"Every attack is one too many"

For Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe in Lower Saxony, one thing is certain: every attack is one too many. However, there has been no increase in attacks against emergency services this year. The association hopes that the publicity campaigns of recent months will be effective and that people will remain aware that rescuers should never be the target of physical attacks.

According to a spokesperson for the German Red Cross (DRK) in Wiesbaden, emergency services are trained to de-escalate such situations. "They also know when they should withdraw and call the police." The Ministry of the Interior in Wiesbaden stated: "Police officers are prepared for such attacks as part of their basic and advanced training."