How do you keep him safe and warm in the pool? Bavaria wants to let agents swim for free

There is no such summer mood in Berlin: outdoor swimming pools suffer from “verbal attack, spitting or bullying”. Moreover, in Germany, the state of Bavaria is cracking down on these hooligans.

Police officers in Bavaria should be given free access to outdoor swimming pools in their spare time this summer, said Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann. This action is proposed on the condition that the agents promise to intervene in the event of scuffles in swimming pools. “It’s a practical way to provide more security there,” the minister said.

Germany has been under the influence of outdoor pool hooligans for weeks. The capital, Berlin, in particular, regularly makes headlines. In an urgent message, Columbiabad employees in the Neukölln district spoke of an unsustainable situation. They will have to deal regularly with “verbal attacks, spitting or bullying”. The pool was closed last week, just days after several affected employees reported sick.

To deter troublemakers, the Berlin government has now decided that guests who take a shower must show their identification upon entry. Swimming pools should also hire more security personnel and use an access station if the pool threatens to become too full. According to a swimming pool spokesperson, the goal is: “to make swimming pools safer and therefore more attractive to visitors and to reduce the burden on pool personnel”.

conservative mayor

But in Bavaria, people view Berlin’s actions with skepticism. The Bavarian government is passionately campaigning for tough penalties for swimming pool hooligans. For example, the Minister of Justice, Georg Eisenreich, wants to take advantage of speedy justice, which the state has recently begun using to block climate activists. This is not surprising, because Bavaria is ruled by the CSU, which is a real party of law and order. Party members often talk about the “chaotic capital of Berlin”, which was also devastated by street riots last New Year’s Eve.

Partially as a result of these riots, Berlin got a conservative mayor from the CDU, the Bavarian CSU’s sister party, this spring for the first time since the turn of the century. Although Mayor Kai Wegner has not yet proposed harsh penalties in Berlin, the Federal Party is putting pressure on them. “Anyone who attacks people in the swimming pool in the afternoon should remain in court in the evening and be judged,” General Secretary Carsten Linenemann told the newspaper. Build. He said prison sentences should also be imposed.

Employee training

Even Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) wants states to consider putting more police in swimming pools. According to Bavarian Interior Minister Hermann, Bavaria has demonstrated that such an approach works. “According to all the numbers I’ve seen, the situation in Bavaria is not at all comparable to the situation in Berlin,” he said. The Bavarian police proudly announced this week that the number of accidents in the state is much lower than before the pandemic. But this also appears to be the case in Berlin, the weekly reported strict.

Meanwhile, not everyone in Bavaria thinks the police belong in a swimming pool. For example, an outdoor swimming pool in Bavaria’s Ingolstadt is well underwhelmed by staff training. Director Roland Riegler told Munich evening newspaper That employees receive training in de-escalation techniques in order to prevent conflicts. “Except for theft and robbery, the police hardly need to come here,” he said.

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