Are German police above the law?

Are police in Germany allowed to do whatever they want?
I'Ve seen police drive the wrong way down one-way streets, take short-cuts through parks, speed, ignore the seatbelt law, ignore red lights, drive through pedestrian areas just to buy a kebab, etc. Not one of these times did they use their lights to suggest they were answering a call.

Are German police above the law?

Here I made another version of your story, and it applies to American cops. You can replace the nationality with any nationality you like and insert the local food instead of kebab and it will apply to all the cops all around the world.

I shook my head the other day and the policeman stopped me and asked if I was doing it at him. I just said "wieso?" and then asked if he knew it was a one-way street and he just drove off.

It ain't over until the fat lady sings fat lady makes an illegal u-turn

Re the video in the last post, somehow I don't think the Bavarian police would be nearly as tolerant with "Jimmy Justice."

simple answer regarding bavarian police: yes

All jobs have their ' perks ' innit?

In my lifetime, I've been falsely arrested and threatened a few times with bodily harm for no reason by cops in the US (in 1968, one cop told me to cut my shoulder-length hair or he'd lop it off with a machete he'd brought back from his two tours in Nam; does that count as bodily harm?). I've seen cops accept bribes and beat the living shit out of a friend for no reason at all. I've seen cops stand by while local kids beat up a tourist and smashed up his car.

In spite of all that: The number of times I've seen cops be courteous, helpful, fair, tolerant, good-humored, smart, and LAW-ABIDING so far outnumber the abuses I've witnessed that the abuses are statistically almost non-existent, as far as I'm concerned.

I've had customer service reps who were rude to me, chefs who couldn't prepare food properly, doctors with terrible bedside manner, teachers who taught by insulting the students, been to concerts where the music was terrible, visited galleries where the artists' work was crap, and worked for bosses who could not manage their employees.

In every profession, there are some good apples and some bad ones. Are all police perfect? Of course not. Do they sometimes mess up? Sure, they're human, like everybody else. And given the crap they have to put up with on a daily basis I'm likely to forgive them for minor offenses.

Not to mention, Cestrian, don't assume you know the circumstances in all of the scenarios you mentioned above. For example, cops don't always turn their lights on when they're answering a call.

I did have words with two cops who had parked their car on a disabled space to buy doughnuts Krapfen. They asked what business it was of mine, was I disabled? I pointed out that I wasn't, but neither were they.

I suppose they went and beat someone up because of that incident ...

Stopping their squad car in the most inappropriate and obstructing position to take down an accident, on the other hand, is pure stupidity and not malice aforethought.

Who probably ended up in a wheelchair and will be able to use that space outside the doughnut shop now whereas previously he was never able to find parking. So all's good.

Yes, maybe it was an emergency kebab. The police round here continuously drive through the park and up the wrong way of the one way street near me - it's an abuse of power, nothing more. I see it every day.

Kebabs aside, so what exactly happened in all of those other situations you mentioned? No, maybe they weren't emergencies either, but you have no way of knowing what exactly the cops were doing.

Why are you so sure it's an abuse of power if you have absolutely zero information about the situation at hand? For example, maybe they're driving through the park because they're patrolling it.

From the sounds of it, someone must have recently gotten a ticket and is miffed about it...

The police that I pulled over on my spielstrasse one Halloween night and told that they should know better than to be speeding on a play street were quite red faced. No, they are not above the law and the more they get called on it the better. I have even asked them why they shut down their speed cameras on the Heidemann Strasse just as the BMW group starts going home. The only answer I have ever gotten is that their shift is up. Unfortunately, I think too many cops have too much sympathy for the local speeders.

From the sound of it someone's been shagging a policeman... No, sorry to disappoint you - no ticket. I know the difference between patrols and police just doing what the hell they like because they're above the law...

If you're that upset, why don't you report it to the local Polizeipräsidium or the Bundesland Polizei headquarters.

Comparatively speaking, I've always found the police in Germany to be very professional.

When it comes to driving, I have to say that in my eyes the German (Bavarian in this case) police are exceptionally poor (compared to where I come from) at following the rules of the road, whether it be speeding, tailgating (me, as I was sticking to the speed limit because there was a cop behind me), parking where they shouldn't and/or in dangerous spots.

nice quote, and something that most people ignore.

<kikker> <kikker>