Germany: Police Helicopters hunt Sprayers. One dead.
international |
rights, freedoms and repression |
news report 
Saturday April 09, 2005 12:52
by n.g.
- repression -
Berlin - no joke: German minister for inner affairs Otto Schily (SPD) ordered his new created military style police "Polizei des Bundes" to hunt graffiti sprayers with helicopters and ground units in Berlin, the german "streetart-capitol", at night.
One innocent man came to death.
The helicopters film sprayers with special night-view-cameras and give the information about the location of the sprayers to police units on ground - which have to capture the sprayers.
The helicopters have to fly very deep and very close above heavily populated city areas. Most residents are more pissed of about the helicopters than about the sprayers.
Yesterday one innocent motor biker came to death when a police car, hunting a sprayer, crashed into him.
This new police strategy is another, until now unknown, escalation of repression.
links to german news media:
http://www.handelsblatt.com/pshb/fn/relhbi/sfn/buildhbi/cn/GoArt!200013,200050,882687/SH/0/depot/0/
http://www.meinberlin.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=detail_polizeiticker&url=archiv/24530/index.html
http://www.meinberlin.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=detail_polizeiticker&url=archiv/24514/index.html
Comments (8 of 8)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8I am more pissed off with the graffiti vandals. I hope they are all captured and sent to prison, and made pay for the damage.
@ link.
put "graffiti berlin" through google and you'll see the range of pick-up & contemporary cultural interest in graffiti art and stencils and murals in Berlin. N.B. that Berlin like all cities changes, an urban culture is rarely static, and the overt or other political or cultural message of the walls, same as the dominant youth culture changes perhaps constantly. And if they change then the minority or other groups who seek to lay claim to public space by exerting territory by use of slogan or symbol change as well.
= there's a wee bit more to this than fans of "spray on the wall" v. fans of "all graffiti is dirty vandalism"
might at first think. You see *the writing* is on the wall, but so too are many other messages, that ought by now have "sunk", but they didn't, they decided to come back. So the authorities make changes to the laws, and clean up the environment in an attempt to pretend the "other messages" have not come back from the depths and in so doing, marginalise them further helping to offer the proponents of such ideas the status of "underground".
sometimes rather than cleaning up walls, is it better to paint over them?
or just take down the walls.
Good idea German resident. Maybe they could even build a special camp to keep them in, and make them work untill theyve paid for their heinous crimes.
Arbeit macht frei.
In last week's Observer it is reported that all pets in the city of Dresden are being DNA printed. Owners will be fined after shit in the streets is examined. This apparently a popular move. Short memory....
and i said nothing.
This cant be for real. They cant be sending out helicopters and police officers armed to the teeth for graffiti?!?! The cost alone is ridiculous.
Broken windows theory!!
Ah c'mon. Thje cost analysing the DNA of every pet poop....
You must be taking the poop.
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