Frankfurt – Police officers from Frankfurt am Main are once again in the focus of the public prosecutor’s office because of allegedly anti-constitutional chat content. The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt and the Hessian State Criminal Police Office announced that five officers from the police headquarters had been searched. One of the officials is therefore suspected of having used license plates of anti-constitutional organizations. Also against superiors is determined. All five police officers were suspended.
In the past, there had always been scandals and investigations involving the Frankfurt police. Most recently, in April, the public prosecutor’s office brought charges against several police officers from the 1st district, who are said to have shared Nazi images and hate speech in a chat group. They are also said to have slandered the disabled, Jews and Muslims and people with dark skin. The case is related to the “NSU 2.0” threatening letter that became known in 2018. The Frankfurt special task force was disbanded last year because of right-wing chat content, among other things.
In the new case, too, the search warrants are based on the results of investigations in chat groups of a messenger service and led, among other things, to the seizure of various mobile phones, as the authorities announced. A police officer will be investigated until 2018 on suspicion of using license plates from anti-constitutional organizations. In this context, three other officials are accused of thwarting criminal prosecution while in office, and one of them is also accused of violating official secrecy. There is initial suspicion of a violation of official secrecy against another official.
The new Frankfurt police chief, Stefan Müller, said he was very concerned about the allegations and investigations. “It is particularly serious that according to the current state of knowledge, superiors are involved and did not fulfill their special responsibility, but rather presumably abused their function to cover up or cover up misconduct.” This is completely unacceptable and counteracts everything that the Hessian police have built up in terms of a new leadership and error culture, especially in the past two years, said Müller. He spoke of a “slap in the face to all the police officers who do their job in an exemplary and impeccable manner every day”.
The opposition SPD in the Hessian state parliament called for a new error and leadership culture in view of the investigations. Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) does not live up to his responsibility despite repeated cases. All means of criminal and disciplinary law must be exhausted in each individual case, demanded the domestic policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, Heike Hofmann.
