According to the ministry, police officers, firefighters and paramedics are often exposed to violence during demonstrations and when deployed in front of the burning house, in the medical services and in stadiums, during patrols. A trend reversal is not in sight.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – According to the Ministry of the Interior, violence against the police, fire brigade and rescue service in Baden-Württemberg remains at a high level – and there is no end in sight. According to this, 5,049 acts of violence against police officers in the southwest were recorded last year, compared to almost 100 cases or two percent more in the previous year. Firefighters and emergency services were more exposed to the violence last year than the year before. The number of crimes against them increased by 5 to 187 (plus 2.7 percent).
According to information from the Ministry of the Interior, this trend has hardly changed in the current year. Accordingly, the violence against police officers is at the level of the previous year, while rescue workers were attacked more frequently. The specific annual figures are recorded in the police crime statistics (PKS), which will not be presented until next year. In recent years, operational units such as patrol officers and riot police have been particularly affected.
According to statistics, a total of 2,471 police officers were injured in 2021, 18 of them seriously. The year before there were 2360, of whom 27 suffered serious injuries. Among the rescue workers – i.e. firefighters and rescue services – the number of victims fell even more sharply: in a year-on-year comparison, it fell by 30.3 percent in 2021 to 76 minor injuries. Based on the figures available so far, the Ministry of the Interior assumes that the number of injured victims on the part of the police will continue to fall, while it is likely to increase among firefighters and rescue services.
Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) called on people in Baden-Württemberg to “stand in front of our emergency and rescue services like a protective wall”. Police officers, firefighters and emergency services deserve respect and recognition, not contempt or even violence. “Anyone who threatens or even injures emergency services damages the social climate and cohesion, he crosses a red line,” said Strobl of the German Press Agency. “That is not how it works.”
