In the night of December 17 to 18, Essen police are said to have stormed an African bar on the corner of Siemenstraße/Altendorfer Straße during an operation in Altendorf, according to their press report. The operation is said to have led to a large brawl, injured cops and several criminal proceedings.

Altendorf is a migrant working-class district in Essen and is strongly characterized by poverty. Again and again, violent situations occur there, either by police forces or by various lumpen gangs that are up to their mischief there. Especially on the corner of the said "Pan-African Survivor" bar. As an example, in the summer of this year a big street fight between opposing lumpen gangs took place there, in which about 100 people participated and which ended with a knife in the neck of one of them. But also the cops do their best to make the streets unsafe. Thus, in the course of this street fight, the whole neighborhood was virtually occupied by the cops for several weeks, you could see at least one car driving up and down Altendorfer Straße almost every moment, and another one stationed in one of the side streets. The laundromat, which is right next to the bar, for example, was seen in the video of the Adel B. case, when the German-Algerian Adel had a argument with the cops in the open street. During a psychological state of emergency, he threatened to kill himself and therefore called the police as a cry for help. Shortly thereafter, pursued by the cops, he went home, where he was murdered by them through the front door. Police violence and harassment are thus by no means foreign to the place where the stormed bar is located.

The cops' incident report actually tells you everything you need to know. Not on the basis of any particularly valuable or trustworthy information in the report itself, no. But based solely on how the cops decided to write their report and stage the entire operation. The title of the press release is "First friend, then foe - from lifesaver to whipping boy" and sums up the framing of the police well. At the beginning, they first write about a heroic fairy tale in which they claim to have saved the life of an unconscious man by a perfectly executed cardiac massage, before they then write about the actual incident at the bar. However, they just whine about having been whacked on the head by the people. The actual credibility of their introductory rescuer story is to be questioned alone based on the fact that one is much more accustomed to the police sending away emergency doctors and rescue workers at the first opportunity, or not letting them treat people until it is already too late. But whether or not that's how the story really took place is not the bottom line here. Apparently, the cops feel compelled to first present themselves as great life-savers and try to score points with their great commitment before they report on the operation that is actually the topic, in order to desperately polish up their image and distract from the fact that it is just another case of usual harassment against the people by the police.

In contrast to how the cops stage themselves, the police in Essen actually acts like an occupatio force. This has not only been shown after the aforementioned incident in the summer, but also their operation now at the "Pan-African Survivor" is an expression of exactly that. They write in their report about the use of the "operation multi-purpose stick" and "irritants" - in other words nightsticks and pepper spray - when they write about their own use of violence. At the same time, however, they refer to themselves as the "whipping boys" who have experienced unjust violence against themselves. What kind of "whipping boys" are they when they can hardly keep their hands off the baton themselves?

If the masses are resisting the continuous harassment that the cops are perpetrating against them, then that is completely justified. No cheap sob story by the cops will change that. They can't just take whatever liberty they want forever when they're out in our neighborhoods without also having to expect a little headwind sometimes.