Don’t be wiped out so quickly: activists on Brückenstrasse in Niederschöneweide recall the police operation. Officials are reluctant to see the allegations.
Photo: Private / A-Kitchen
It is a potato and slow soup. Two tubs are on the beer table, next to them is a thermos of coffee and a box of cool water. It is a hot afternoon in late June in front of Habersaathstraße 40-48 in Mitte. The A-Kitchen, an anarchist culinary collective from Niederschöneweide, however, has left the well-known neighborhood and offers food and drink for free or for a donation at the vigil against homelessness.
Hannes eats soup, looks for milk for coffee, chats casually. Since November he has been part of A-Kitchen, a “communication platform with the neighborhood and the homeless,” as he puts it on “nd”. Aid and political interconnection belong together. So it was on this day: Hannes put leaflets in front of the pots. “The mourning turns to anger!” It says, calling for a demonstration. Next Saturday, the A-Kitchen wants to remember Marcel K., who was seriously injured in a police operation in Niederschöneweide on April 20 and died in hospital a week later – for the collective a clear case of deadly police violence.
Police describe the operation as follows: Called to the bridge street for entry, the officers found K. and two other men in a stairwell and asked them to leave. K. refused, kicked and beat the officers and threw them a bottle of beer, after which the police defended themselves with a pepper spray. When K. collapsed, they revived him and called the emergency services.
Hannes does not believe this representation. He knew K. from the self-organized neighborhood aid in the Treptow-Köpenick district: from the food distribution, from the gift fence, the conversations that followed. K. was homeless, mostly sitting in front of a bank branch on Michael-Brückner-Platz and often had to go to the hospital, says Hannes, partly due to an open injury on his knee. Apart from the fact that he had never experienced K. as an aggressive man, he could not, however, be dangerous because of his health problems. ‘He couldn’t even walk right. The interest has certainly been exaggerated. “
In addition, there are the reports of two witnesses who are known to the activists of kitchen A. According to their descriptions, the officers pulled K’s injured leg without warning, says Marcel, part of the Koch collective and accidentally a namesake of K. After K. didn’t get up to leave, two of the six officers not only used pepper spray. , but hit him too. K.’s two witnesses and friends don’t want to talk to the police. “They’re traumatized,” says Marcel.
Police and the prosecutor’s office announced a good ten days ago that investigations against two police officers on suspicion of bodily injury resulting in death have been underway since the beginning of June. Thursday’s response to a written question from Berlin Left MPs Niklas Schrader and Stefanie Fuchs shows that the suspected police officers come from section 35 of the Treptow-Köpenick district. Despite the investigation, you are still on duty and there is no discipline against you.
Hannes thinks only previous public pressure led to the investigation: “Without our mobilization, they would have let the matter burn.” He and Marcel have the impression that the police are not looking for an explanation, but rather a cover-up. They talk about a police check on May 23: They were caught by plainclothes officers while they were out with posters that were supposed to inform the neighborhood about the police operation on April 20. “They jumped out of the car with their guns pulled out,” Hannes said. “Hands on your head, on the floor, handcuffed. So we waited an hour and a half. “Hannes suspects that the police wanted to prevent a poster campaign about the fatal outcome of the police operation against K. At the time, however, activists still knew nothing about K.’s death.” nothing new on it, someone said, ‘Oh, we already know the text.’ “
Regarding the police stop on May 23, the answer to the Written Question states that the officers did not pull out any guns. The two men were searched on suspicion of damage to property and “secured by handcuffs” to then establish their identity at the police station. The response also shows that a section 35 police officer was also involved.
After the activists of the A-Kitchen learned of the death of Marcel K in a round, they met on June 3 with candles, flowers and banners in the Brückenstrasse. Police did not come long: first officers told the group to go elsewhere to mourn, then they used water to remove the “crime scene” written on the sidewalk with a splash net. So Marcel reports.
Much remains unclear. When did the police find out about the death of Marcel K? The police press office said it found out about the death only on June 3 after its own investigation. At the same time, the prosecutor ordered an autopsy in early May – without the knowledge of the police? Did Section 35 employees use excessive force against the alleged posters? Here is a statement against a statement.
Marcel and Hannes expect a few hundred protesters and public attention on Saturday. Marcel K. should be saved from oblivion.
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