When it comes to football games and demos, police officers should wear a five-digit sequence of numbers on their uniforms in the future. The state government sees this as a confidence-building measure – the police union, on the other hand, sees it as a vote of no confidence.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – Even if it only affects a very small part of the officers – the German police union regards the planned identification requirement for police officers during large-scale operations as a vote of no confidence in the police – and also as completely superfluous. “We see what is being shown to us as absolute distrust,” said union boss Ralf Kusterer of the German Press Agency. The disappointment with the CDU is particularly great. They only swallowed the toad in the coalition agreement in order to stay in government. “We’re used to that with the Greens.”
Following the example of other federal states, Baden-Württemberg now wants to make it compulsory for police officers to identify themselves during large-scale operations such as football games and demonstrations. A corresponding draft law is to be passed in the green-black cabinet on Tuesday. This is intended to facilitate investigations against police officers after large-scale operations. According to the Ministry of the Interior, only 1,640 of the more than 29,000 officials in the country are affected. It is still unclear when the regulation will come into force.
Kusterer considers the planned labeling to be completely superfluous. Police forces have been identifiable in closed operations for ages, said the trade unionist. Groups of seven or eight men are currently marked with the same numbers and letters on their backs and helmets. Alleged misconduct can thus be determined.
Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) justified the plans with a “strengthening of the citizens’ great trust in the police”. Kusterer does not want to accept this argument. “The population has the utmost trust in the police,” he said. “We don’t need confidence boosting.” According to surveys, more than 80 percent of citizens trusted the police, a much higher figure than trust in politics, Kuster noted.
