Police – Offenbach am Main:Flag upside down: disciplinary action against police officers
Directly from the dpa news channel
Schlüchtern / Frankfurt (dpa / lhe) – After the incident with a flag raised the wrong way on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2019 at the police station in Schlüchtern in East Hesse, a disciplinary measure was imposed on one of the four officers involved. The disciplinary proceedings against the three other police officers had been discontinued, the police headquarters (PP) in Southeast Hesse announced on Friday. “A political motivation for the misconduct was not found,” it said. The “Fuldaer Zeitung” had previously reported on it.
The four officials were accused of having hoisted the federal flag and the Hessian state flag upside down at half mast for about two hours on January 27, 2019 – the day of commemoration of the victims of National Socialism – in the city in the Main-Kinzig district. The Frankfurt public prosecutor had already stopped proceedings against the police officers in March 2019 on the grounds that hanging the flags upside down did not constitute a criminal offense – even if this happened on the day of remembrance. According to the public prosecutor, it was not possible to clearly determine that the Holocaust should possibly be played down.
According to the PP Südosthessen, all four officers were temporarily transferred to other offices in the district immediately after the incident became known. One of them has meanwhile been retired, the other three – including the one against whom the disciplinary measure was imposed – are doing their service in the PP Southeast Hesse.
Police President Eberhard Möller declared: “We will not tolerate misconduct by colleagues that may arise from an extremist attitude.” All civil servants “always represented the authority of the state, both within and outside of office hours, with or without uniform. We are aware of this. That is why such suspicions are not only carefully examined under criminal law, but also under civil servant law.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210129-99-220276 / 2
— .
