Comments on: police agression: freiheit statt angst

By: E.

E. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:17:24 +0000

There are 2 more videos, one showing the scene before the assault, another from a different perspective. The man with the bloody nose was beaten by an officer as well. The chant is something you will encounter very regularly at demonstrations in Germany - it says "We are peaceful - what are you?!", and is usually employed by politically left protestors as soon as it gets ugly. Great to have you here, Colleen. I'm trying to keep everything in English, though I'm having hard times when it comes to German poetry or literature.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:48:12 +0000

It is so disturbing that they jumped on him when he was trying to run away. It seems totally unprovoked and from what I can see, suddenly they are all punching and kicking him. What about the bloody-nose guy? How did that happen? What did people start chanting?

By: E.

E. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:30:56 +0000

General passive surveillance of us citizens is a massive restriction of our rights and our freedom, because it treats us like potential criminals. Security cannot protect freedom if it abolishes freedom.

If only 1 out of 1.000 installed cameras helps solving a crime, this is completely out of proportion.

You raise a very interesting question, but I highly doubt Scotland Yard would release this kind of information to the public. They’re rather restrictive with the data they collect about us.

By: Basti

Basti — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:20:57 +0000

I’m very happy that this video has gotten the attention it deserves – it even made it to the frontpage of tagesschau.de. Police aggression is absolutely intolerable, and must be prosecuted.

I do believe that the police in general does not condone that kind of action, and that the policemen need better training to cope with high-tension situations. Crowd control is probably the most important skill for any general policeman out there.

In the mean time I hope the German justice system can show how well it works.

Regarding that “1 in 1000 crimes solved because of CCTV” issue: Is there any classification of crime? It would be very interesting to see what type of crime can/will be solved (and if that is worth all the surveillance).