FILE PHOTO: Police officers walk on the premises of the Stephansposching refugee shelter, Germany,
October 24, 2018. © Global Look Press / Armin Weigel
Five police officers have been injured in violent clashes with asylum seekers, who have staged a riot in a shelter in the state of Bavaria, Germany. German crime statistics also show that migrant violence is becoming a new trend.
Police were deployed to a large refugee shelter located in the small Bavarian community of Stephansposching on Friday evening following reports of asylum seekers going on a rampage. When the officers arrived at the scene, they were confronted by a group of some 30 aggressive refugees and migrants, Bavarian Radio reports, citing police.
The officers were harassed and even spit at in the face from the very start. The situation then dramatically escalated when they attempted to detain the alleged ringleader. In response, the group assaulted the officers and started beating them. Some asylum seekers even threw bicycles at them.
The rioters then attempted to prevent the police from leaving, with one man jumping at a police car’s side window while others built barricades and blocked the shelter gates with stones and cable-reels to stop them from escaping the scene. The officers, apparently, had to leave their car there as, according to Bavarian Radio, they only managed to flee the scene by getting over a construction fence.
It was only after large reinforcements arrived that the police finally managed to restore order in the facility. Five police officers, who were initially caught in the riot, sustained various injuries, including cuts as well as eye and rib injuries. Four of them were admitted to hospital.
Police initially detained 15 people but only six of them were arrested. Those arrested face charges of a serious breach of the peace and property damage, as well as resistance to law enforcement and assault. The suspected ringleader initially managed to flee the shelter as the officers were assaulted by other rioters and the police had to use a helicopter to track him down. He eventually surrendered to police several hours later.
A regional police union chief condemned the incident in Stephansposching by calling it absolutely unacceptable, and decrying the lack of respect the asylum seekers demonstrated to the police. “This is an absolute no go,” he told Bavarian Radio, adding that it is “troubling that police officers were injured in the refugee shelter again.”
Again?
It is not the first time Germany’s refugee shelters hit the news following violent clashes between police and asylum seekers. In early May, police officers and a rescue service crew were pelted with stones and bottles as they sought to retrieve the body of a woman who was found dead on the premises of another shelter in the Bavarian town of Regensburg.
A group of some 40 asylum seekers gathered in front of the shelter and sought to prevent German law enforcement from entering the building. The officers were again harassed and attacked by the refugees and migrants, who later retreated to the shelter and barricaded themselves inside, while pelting the police with stones and bottles which they threw from the windows.
In the end, 20 patrol cars and 50 officers were needed to stop the riot. No one was injured in the incident, though. According to the Bild daily, there were also “no indications” that the dead woman in the shelter had fallen victim of a crime.
So, what was the point of the rioting?
Migrant violence against Germans on the rise – police
A recent German police report published in April paints an even grimmer picture as it indicates that the number of violent crimes perpetrated by migrants and refugees against Germans has been on the increase in recent years.
Of course it has. How could it not be so? It will continue to get worse. Mother Merkel has picked a good time to abandon the ship she so effectively scuttled in 2015.
One in ten victims of violent offenses in Germany in 2018 had been assaulted by migrants, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said. The statistics on “violent crimes” included murders and contract hits, sexual assaults as well as particularly brutal physical abuse and robberies. Out of about one million victims of such crimes in Germany last year, 102,000 were assaulted by migrants. The number of such crimes committed by immigrants and asylum seekers against Germans increased by seven percent in comparison to 2017, the police said.
In particular, 230 Germans have been victims of attempted murders and contract hits, in which at least one non-German citizen was identified as a suspect – twice as many as in 2017. More than 100 people were killed.
More than 3,200 Germans were sexually assaulted by immigrants and asylum seekers in 2018, police added. The total number of violent crimes committed by foreigners against Germans has risen by 19 percent in comparison to 2017.
At the same time, only 8,455 asylum seekers and refugees were victims of violent crimes – mostly infliction of bodily harm – perpetrated by Germans. That amounts to 18 percent of all violence-related cases, in which foreigners seeking protection in Germany were registered as victims. In most cases, refugees and asylum seekers were attacked by other non-Germans, according to police.
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