Police Racism in Munich

The police in Munich are in my experience racist... Does anyone else think they are?

The police in munich are the most militant unpleasant bunch of arseholes in Europe (compared with other European police forces of course, not compared to other groups of unpleasant militant arseholes.)

I would hazard a guess that they are extremely racist. Actually, most police forces in cities are often a bit racist (based on British and French coppers I know anyway.) In london the majority of crime is comitted by blacks, who are a minority in the population. When the coppers only dealings with black folk is to question them over crimes, they all seem to become pretty anti-blacks. In Souther France, the police (and pretty much everyone else as it goes) do not like the Arabs.
I bet the police here are not very fond of the little turkish wankers that think they are ganstas.

Sounds about right.

My 15€ fine, for cycling on the cycle path in the WRONG direction??!?!?!?! I was turing into work. FFS.

If I'd read this first, my brush with the law would have been better posted here. Anyway, I did not find them to be racist(but I think they were from Pfarrkirchen or Eggenfelden) but I found them to be smarmey, self-righteous... don't get me started.

My wife just got fined 25 Euros for riding her bike through a red "Cyclist" light. Althought there was nowt coming. I mean FFS

It's like a police state sometimes. Have they not got anything better to do?

And yes, they are racist. I know a few people from africa and the middle east from college and they're always being stopped for no reason. The arabs have got it worst. Since sept 11th they've had their phones tapped, letters read and been taking in for questioning.

I've been stopped and asked for ID maybe half a dozen times - normally when I've been on long distance trains (within Germany). I've always been able to show them something that satisfied them (even my Aussie drivers license once). I'm a bit darker and look Ausländer, so maybe that's why I've been stopped.

Racist Police Force..
Everytime I see someone getting stopped for an ID check (normally at Ostbahnhof as I live near there) they are always always black or Eastern European from their looks.
Why??
Is the police force in Munich so racist?
Or is it 'sensible' policing i.e. do the figures state that 99% of all criminals are 1st/2nd generation foreigners?

It disgusts me totally every time I see it.

Then I scuttle off if my conscience isn't totally clear that day

Ticket checks happen to me loads, at least 3 times in 2 months (I travel mostly with the S-Bahn) and they seem fairly equal to everyone in this duty (although a little overly agressive in some situations..but hey..)

however when doing ID checks .. hmm I dunno is it just me who has this impression?

Not criminals UA, illegal immigrants.

Not illegal immigrants but undocumented workers.
Apparently it is just as bad as the 'n' word.

So I was out with my foreigners and I said "Whazzap Illegal immigrants?" And they were like, "Yo! Illegal immigrant. Keepin' it real?" And I was like, "Illegal immigrant, please!"

What if the person is not working, do we just refer to them as The Undocumented?

The bus to my place starts at the HBF, which means I often wind up spending 10-15 minutes standing outside if I'm trying to get home late evenings. While waiting for the bus I've had the opportunity to see them do racial profiling in a blatant way. I've watched them literally circle the HBF in vans and just stop every time they see someone who was simultaneously 1) darker-skinned and 2) shabbily-dressed. I guess they do this under the assmption that people fresh from elsewhere would be more likely to be concentrated around the HBF, having just gotten in from wherever they were coming from... In any case I've seen them stop people clearly based on the above criteria, and if the ID check wasn't kosher, they'd frisk them and pack them into the van. The van would then proceed thusly until it filled up,at which point a second van, empty and waiting in reserve, would take over and the game would continue.

While I'm a tad darker-skinned. I don't have the facial features or "walk" of immigrant from the "south" or the "east." I dress well, and usually even have my girlfirend (laptop) with me, and so I've never been hassled in their rolling-cruise searches and ever don't expect to. If I looked more "prollig" and fit their profiles, then I guarantee I'd be hassled.

Is it racist? I think they're clearly doing profiling. Does it work?` I think they are definitely catching fish using this technique. Is it okay? Debatable -- depends on what one finds acceptable...

Well I get stopped quite a bit cos i look like any old German, but after work I look scruffy and not to mention my terroristic (longer than "normal") hair.

It's normally near HBF, once on Schillerstr. at about 2am and i wanted to see if anything 'round there was open for food. I was always told to speak English to them cos they have the advantage on you cos they know their laws and their territory, so speaking English evens it up a bit cos they have to think a little.

So they ask if i had anything that can hurt them, (apart from my fist if used the right way) I said no. I don't normal carry passports, bank cards etc cos i simply don't wanna lose them.

Through searching my pockets they found my keys, and to my surprise the guy wasn't happy at all cos i had a penknife. He said "what's this?" so i explained that it was a knife with a 1" blade that couldn't be dangerous and that i forgot about it (which i did).

Anyway they took my phone and he got in his car and i dunno, ran some checks. When he gave me it back i said "Does it work ok?" they soon realised (not being a smoker) that i had nothing for them to find, they gave me everything back and drove off.

I didn't find anything to eat!

After telling my German flatmate he got quite angry that they take advantage of foreigners. He says they don't treat the Germans like that. I always find it amusing cos the police always waste their time on me cos i live and work here officially, i don't smoke weed etc etc.

Next time (apparently) i should tell them that they have no right to search my pockets and get them to take me down the station. Then after a couple of hours of further wasted time they might start to realise that it is costing them far too much time and money stopping people with long hair when most of the top druggie dealers are sharp dressed and clean shaven.

Phil

COPS R COPS! they're all f**king racists. dudn't matter where the hell you are on this planet, they're all jerks. i was stopped in n.y.c on 12th and 5th for running a red on my bike (20 measly bucks). cops are all alike so it ain't just the troopers here in Toytown which are punks with a badge.

You broke the law and a nearby cop picked you up on it. What complete and utter racists they are!! What the hell is our world coming to when you can't always get away with breaking a few laws.

I'm going to get my skin bleached, so I won't get stopped by the police...

I dunno. While they definitely do some racial profiling here --which is ethically quesiontable in many peoples' books -- I think that on the average the cops here are much moe professional than in many parts of the world, where they are much more likely to run rampant with their authority.

The most basic definition of a government is a monopoly on violence, and the way
that the Germans choose to exercise this to establish order is mild by almost all accounts. I've never had to interact with English bobbies, but I've seen German cops in action (I tend to lurk & watch when something's up) and I think that anybody who has ever seen the confrontation-trained LAPD or the outright corrupt Mexican Federales in action will love the German cops, who will do everything they can to *gasp* verbally defuse situations before using heavier tactics. On the whole spectrum of things I think they do it with a much milder touch than cops in other countries charged with the same job...

I commute through HBF every day and yes, they are rascist fucks!
Almost EVERY person I have ever seen controlled by these bastards has been obviously an "Ausländer". As the poster above said, they cruise round the HBF area in their vans looking for their next target.

They do control some "Aryans" for the crimes of having long hair or punky clothes or whatever.

They work the motorways big time in unmarked cars looking for "out of place" people / car combinations. If you are black in a car with "CHA" pates, from Cham near the Czech Border, you ARE gonna get stopped.

The "problem" of the police in Munich is that most of them are the 2nd sons of Niederbayerische farmers who don't inherit the farm. So they join the police, get sent to big city multi-culti Munich which is totally strange for them. They are cut off from the friends and family 5 days a week and don't mix in Munich society either.

Word to the wise: The bastards are now doing the London trick of searches in underground stations. They are often in the "Zwischengeschoss" between the two sets of escalators going down to the U1 / U2. They primarily stop and physically search (white, German) teenagers. I think they might do it at other stations too. Might be better to think about your mode of transport if you were off to party or whatever with any recreational substance that the Govt. hasn't had tax on.

Münchner Freiheit. Happens alot. Stop people, few questions about ID, drugs, weapons, etc. Happened a couple of times to me now. I have also stayed around for a while to watch the police activity, and seen them stop all sorts of youths, regardless of race, but have never seen them search a white woman with a pram. Seen them stop alot of black women with prams though..
Once, there were 6, SIX, coppers at the station, all doing "random" searches. They asked me if I had any drugs on me. Does anybody EVER say yes? What are they actually going to find? Do many people carry kilos of narcotics around?
Its insane. They WILL take you down to the station, and spend hours strip searching you, doing paperwork etc if they find as little as 2g of hash on you in Bayern. Don't ever worry too much if this happens, the judge will just chuck it out.


Brilliant! I always thought that they were people who wanted to join the army, but were too weak, so chose the Bayern Police Force so they could still get a gun.

ok guys you are being really unfair. First of all Munich is the safest city in Germany (thanks to "racist police") and i am quite happy to live in such safe city. Secondly, standing on Hbf or Ostbahnhof the chances are that u might be a drug dealer and the police doesn´t know that. They will check u just to make sure and I think that is ok. Working with people of all kinds is not easy and they may be sometimes ticked off by someone else and than pissed of with u because u don´t carry your ID or have a small pocket knife, but that is everywhere so. I don´t think that african-americans feels safe in southern america. It´s an old story and cops are cops...

And the ones that failed to get into the Police joined the U-Bahn-Wache.

Hitler thought about joining the U-Bahn Wache too, but he was too short so instead he went on to rule half of continental Europe. Must have been a tough call for him though.

Given Madrid, it is somewhat a blessing that they do harrass people now. Makes Toytown safe.

Only one dangerous town in Bayren and that is Bad Tolz. During the TV season of The Bulle von Tolz there is a murder there every week.

Given that Germany is not too involved in Bu$h and Bliars illegal imperialist war in Iraq it is more likely to happen elsewhere. Beckstein and Stoiber know this but it doesn't stop them getting a stiffy and calling for more police powers and more powers for the state against non-German Citizens.

Let's be honest, is a barely literate niederbayerische farmboy who police activities at stations is primarily about harrasing non-Germans and searching kids for the odd joint really any match for Al-Qaida?

I am English and have lived for some time in Wales before coming to Munich, and to be perfectly honest I find the police here far better. For a start they look more like friendly forrest rangers than cops (if you ignore the semi automatic pistol hanging from their belt). I haven't been stopped by the police in germany despite having longer than normal hair and usually unshaven. However I do normally have what I consider smartish clothes (if you discount the occasional heavy-metal t-shirt or jumper) and have been told on several occasions that I "look german" (I've also been told I "look spanish" by a few people but I'm far too pale in my opinion).

In wales I have only been spoken to by police once, for being a passenger in a illegaly loaded car, fair enough really. Talking to my English and Welsh friends both admit that the police treat English people differently with an English driver far more likely to get producers when pulled over because they suspect you're drunk, which they seem to do alot where I lived.

In Munich the police I have spoken to were very friendly, spoke perfect english and seemed genuinly please to be a help to me. I did get stopped by the S-Bahn guys, whose uniforms look far more militant than the police if you ask me, my Streifenkarte apparantly wasn't valid, he showed me some funny coloured boxes in a little book he had but failed to explain what they meant. I was given a 40 EUR fine for my unwitting crime, later when i got home I noticed that it says on the ticket that return and round trips aren't permitted, I was supposed to have paid the fine by yesterday, I still haven't and I still haven't decided whether I will pay it, I don't know if I can appeal in any way, I can only imagine that if I don't pay I will suffer "colonial occupation" (see Protests on Marienplatz this week (16-20.Mar.2004) for explanation) I also considered paying 39.99 EUR of the fine to see what happened.

Steve

I am in the shit with the law at the moment here (traffic violation - kinda funny story) but the police were dead on about it , I was caught and they were in the right , but they were polite and professional . I have also had a few run - ins with the law in Ireland (ran a red light) and a less professional louder redneck I have seldom had the displeasure of encountering. Maybe in Ireland they would have let me off with a warning , in the States they would have fucking strip searched me and thrown me into a cell , but here they were polite and efficient and I offended in their country. With the exception of the one bitch of the london metropolitan police in Heathrow airport I have no complaints about the English either.
The two lads even gave me their number so that they would do their best when it goes to court.
All by the book , all of the time - cant argue with that.

I was in Hauptbahnhof this weekend helping a friend who only speaks Spanish buy a train ticket and I became aware of a scuffle I suppose you could call it. One uniformed Polizei and one plain-clothed guy were being pretty rough with a boy, I couldn't see the boy very well because he was on his arse with his hands being held in the air by the handcuffs he had on.

He was with two girls and they were pleading with the police, in English, to be reasonable and grapling with them too. The boy started shouting, in English, for help. A load of people began gathering round about 20-30 I guess. The police didn't seem to enjoy the attention and started dragging the poor boy by the handcuffs into the Schliessfacher corridor, the boy didn't think much to that and was trying to stop them, so they stopped, then the plain-clothes cop knelt on his crossed legs, eventually they got him in the corridor.

Next I saw he was on his feet, still cuffed, and the cop was looking through his passport and muttering into his radio. He then uncuffed the boy and proceeded to shout at the boy in a sergeant major two inches from face manner. "I AM POLICE OFFICER" he jabbed at the polizei badge on his shoulder "LOOK AT THE BADGE, I AM IN A UNIFORM", he then pushed the boy away and said sarcasticly "GOOD BYE".

As the three walked past me I asked him if he was ok, he showed me his wrist and it looked painful. He said he had doubts whether the guy who had asked him for his passport was a policeman, I assume the plain-clothes guy had asked him for the passport. He said he'd heard stories of bogus policemen in Munich asking for passports who then stole them. He also told me he was Korean and couldn't speak German, his English was faultless though, he had asked the police to go to the DB employee he had just been talking to so that he could translate for them, they denied his request.

How it escalated into the brutalisation I saw I have no idea, but it certainly seemed far more force than was required. I was very shocked by the incident and it has certainly changed my opinion of the police, even more than the cop I saw only a few hours later smashing a punk into a wall at the protest.

Talking of the protest, does anyone know what it was about, none of the hundred or so police at Hauptbahnhof were able to explain it to me and from what I saw they were mostly chanting "Nazin aus" but I know it's a year since the regime change in iraq.

@ Steve

Bunch of fascist scum tried to hijack the anniversary of to relativise the crimes of the Nazis. So a lot of the protests at the weekend from the lefties/greenies were as much about stopping the fascists rather than the war itself.

I want to report Police brutality, who do I have to see to do this, yesterday, whilst walking through the main train station, looking for English newspapers, I stopped a Police man to ask where the International newspaper stand was, and to my horror, he dropped his notebook on my foot, he said sorry and that it was an accident, but I could tell by his bulging eyes, that he did this deliberately, I think he left a mark on my trainer, I will investigate this further, with a magnifying glass, if I find a mark, I will be right around to my solicitors to take further action, brutal N**I scum.

I am really shocked to see these stories about the Munich Police. I spend a lot of time in Munich and have always found them helpfull and professional. On one of my recent stays, I was at the Le Merdian Hotel. At about 2 am I heard some drunks outside getting pretty loud. About 5 minutes later the police were there. I was shocked at the way they handled the situation. They talk with the guy for a few minutes and he turned from a yelling rage into a guy telling them he was sorry as they loaded him into the police car. Now mind you, I am from Los Angeles. Here they would have beat the guy with their nightsticks to within an inch of life.

i have been to munich on four occasions now. i tell everyone in england how many police you see while on the streets. you feel safe and you know a policeman /woman is never gonna be that far away. i wish england put as many police on the streets as in munich. as regarding the immigrants over here the police simply dont want to know about them or even care it seems

crowes, the only time i've seen busies on the streets in england is on a saturday arvo for the overtime at the football.

otherwise they'll be hiding behind hedges in their big fat rovers trying to catch o.a.p's speeding.

Q: What kind of
animal has a c*nt in the middle of it's back?

A: A Police horse.

I for one accept the German ideal of limitless authority to spot check anyone they see fit!!!

Makes me feel a little safer in this world of crazy people!

All this checking by the police do not make the place safer, in my opinion. It is like the drunk who is looking for his wallet under the street lamp, when asked if he lost his wallet there, says no but that is where the light is.

Whenever we are on trains and the police march through the compartment, you can bet they will stop and check us. All the russian/east european speaking come to a standstill. When my son is being searched, the other kids who have illegal stuff on them have a laugh.

Once in a police station, a policeman made racist remarks. I filed a complaint. They conveniently couldn´t identify the 2 policemen who were on duty at 6 a.m. on a sunday and they then called me to identify them from photos 7 months later.

My son carries his german`Kinderausweiss´ as he finds it saves time when he is being searched and checked etc. Once they asked where his school was, and he had to point to the building that they were standing in front of.

Oh well, the price we pay for having natural tan...

as I came past hauptbahnhof to work this morning, there was a gaggle of poeple grouped on the steps of easy everything... Just the perfect group the police wouuld love...

But then I noticed they were all Jehovas Witnesses... even with the little black badges.

Guess they wont get stopped then

Poots

Worth mentioning that a couple of years ago the German Federal Government (not Bayern, obviously) floated the idea of allowing non-German Citizens to join the police to try and bridge the gap that a lot of posters here have already made clear exists.

The biggest "NEIN" came from...yeah, you guessed it, the police "trade union".
Was für eine Überraschung.

With regards to Police searches, I alwasy find that by giving them a quick blow job, with my finger stuck in their arse, moves them along rather quickly with no hassle and no marches down the police station...SORTED!

Thanks Tormentor, thats the best advert I have ever read for joinng the Munich constabulary.

Hi.
Im a young women here working as a model for a couple of years, and I get searched by the police all the time, but usually by female police officers.

Is there any equivalent activity that would work with a female officer? Im not really an expert on such things, so if you could provide as much explanation as possible, I would be very grateful. I need details.

Thanks

Raylene.

The Polizei may be racist, but I can tell you from experience things are much, MUCH worse in other places. I've talked to friends here who are male and African-American and even they say that there is no comparison. Matter of fact, they say they prefer life here to that of the states because of the lack of harrassment. Sure, they get stopped and questioned on occasion but I've heard that the Polizei always back down when challenged in American english.

I've never had any problems since I look so innocuous and usually have my nose in a book. I guess.

Weird thing though, I encountered checks three times in one day yesterday on the U-bahn. Weird thing was that all three times, the officials were wearing street clothes. I didn't know why they were walking around until they flashed their IDs. And to me, two of them looked VERY non-German. I would have guessed that they were Turkish or something.

Earlier tonight at Lehel U-Bahn station - 5 plain-clothes U-Bahn-Wache holding an african guy down on the floor. Handcuffed, face-down, legs twisted and forced up over his back, screaming in pain.

All looked a bit over the top, so took a couple of pictures with my camera-phone. Immediately had 2 other guys come over and block me in against the wall until I deleted them.

Police arrived and they all dragged the african guy, plus his mate, into a side-room.

Legal discussion split to here: photographing police in Germany

Well here there is a bunch of policemen that would dream to have an SS stamped on their uniforms, maybe even a swastika. They just love it.

That's bullshit. The police here are no worse than anywhere else and better than most!

I was at a seminar from the Volkshochschule (adult education / night school) about peole who live "illeagally" in Munich. Very interesting. Anyway, when Munich City Council approached the police to discuss their attitude to racism and and the possibility of anti-racist training, the police denied there was an issue of racism in the Munich police, refused to discuss the idea of anti-racist training and then refused to co-operate with the City Council project.

IF even the metroplitan Police in London can openly admit there is aproblem with racism from the cops (Very multi-racial city where most ethnic minoities can vote) then surely in Munich where the "Aulsänder" are used as voteless whipping boys then there must be an issue?

Jumped on the bandwagon a tad late, however felt need to comment.

I think it depends on their mood. I did that slam 3 mass beers and jump on a bicycle thing and did a full on swan dive over the handle bars, landed on my chin on the police station door step. They were lovely. Locked up my bike, let me go free. They even called a fast car (ambulance) while I sat there bleeding and crying on the sidewalk. I did not get a warning, a slap on the wrist, nothing! They did look at me shaking their heads and I thought I could hear them thinking "I hate Americans, especially the ones from Texas" but then I remembered my passport says Alabama on it so I must have been hearing voices in my head.

That's what a lot of people say until you're the one "hassled" for no apparent reason other than you are non-white.

Topic reassigned by admin.

one you can't prove that in court so dont mention it , and two that happens in any country i've ever been to. it dosn't mean they're rasicst, just that they're lazy. uh black guy equals 50% chance of him not being kosha.

That is a bit extreme. Perhaps you would like to rephrase that?

I think Gideon meant that was what the police are thinking and I'd agree that they think that.

I pass through Hbf almost every day and do a fair bit of travelling around Bavaria.
You reckon I have ever seen the Polizei doing "random" controls on a white respectable looking middle class German?

I went to a lecture last year by someone who wrote a report on the lives of so-called "illegals" in Munich for the city council. When they approached the police to contribute to the work they denied that they had a problem in the force with racism and then when this was questioned refused to co-operate on the project.

I have to admit that I don't have extensive experience being stopped by the police...

The couple of times that I have been stopped they were always professional but certainly curt. Then again, it depends on what your attitude is towards the police in general. If you basically trust them, which I do more or less, you're also a lot less likely IMO to be apprehensive and conflictual when you do have to deal with them.

I am far more concerned about abuse/hassles from the police than harm from criminals. I've haven't been assulted before, but twice have spent the night in jail due do some random check from a traffic stop (then released in the morning and told it was a "computer error"). Note this was in the US (and in more conservative part of rural California) and after they cop had said "is this an Arab name?", though pre 9/11.

Anyway, most of my lawyer friends have told me a) never trust the cops and never say anything. Sure some (few IMHO) cops are there because they want to world to be a nicer place, but far more are just racist, a-holes that want to take out their frustration by having a little power over us all.

Once in a while you do meet some really good police... those folks I admire... not 100 percent bitter from my experiences with them