Last weekend, a 26-year-old man from Ghana was killed by police in a municipal refugee shelter in Mülheim-Saarn. Prior to this, the young refugee had allegedly gone on the rampage in the accommodation and attacked the facility's security staff. When the police found the man in the accommodation, he allegedly attacked the police officers in his room. The police then used Tasers, i.e. stun guns, on the man twice. According to the police, however, the man did not react to the extremely violent electric shocks or collapse. Interviews with police spokespeople and bourgeois media reports further reveal that the man was then arrested with pain grips and considerable force and transported in a fixed position to an ambulance. There he had to be resuscitated during the journey to hospital, so he was already close to death. Once at the hospital, the fugitive died on Sunday morning.
In the subsequent autopsy led by the Bochum police, which, as is so often the case in such cases, is carried out by a subsequent authority, no cause of death could allegedly be found. Instead, "fittingly" all sorts of facts exonerating the police were found, such as that the man was allegedly severely previously ill and had cocaine in his blood. In the now customary procedure after such killings and murders by the police, all kinds of "experts" are given the floor in the bourgeois media to relativize the operation. For example, a spokesman for the NRW police union was given speaking time on WDR in which he was allowed to make the demonstrably false claim that Tasers do not cause serious injuries. In recent years, however, there have been several deaths both nationwide and in NRW as a result of Taser deployments by the police, which are very clearly attributable to the use of the weapon. International experience from the USA and other countries also shows similar results.
However, the police in Mülheim are not a blank slate. It is under the command of the police in Essen and is also affiliated to it, in other words the police department that has become known in recent years for the murders of Maikel Haile and Adel B. and other incidents of police violence. On the other hand, it was the police authority in Essen and Mülheim police officers who were involved in one of the so-called "Nazi chat" affairs, which initially even led to raids on the police officers involved, but not, as was to be expected, to long-term legal or official consequences.
Now, within the general chauvinistic mood, attempts are being made to justify the murder of the refugee from Ghana because he was allegedly rioting and consuming cocaine. But even if this is the case, it is probably the imperialist exploitation and oppression of his home country, as well as the well-known unacceptable conditions in refugee accommodation in Germany, that have led him to be angry. The response of the repressive apparatuses to anger and despair by workers and especially migrants from the deepest and broadest masses is then often police violence, often fatal.
The fugitive is not the only victim of fatal police violence in NRW in this still young year. Just this Monday, a 28-year-old man died in the custody of the Aachen police. According to police reports, the man collapsed and could not be resuscitated afterwards. And, according to the police, there are no indications of any outside involvement here either. So the year 2024 starts where last year ended. German imperialism is also in its own country becoming ever more reactionary and murderous and then covering up its actions. However, just like last year, this will also lead to more and more people seeing the true face of this system and losing trust in it.
Cover image is a symbolic image (Note from the author: The picture shows the Interior Minister of NRW).
