It’s a well-known phenomenon: Although many travelers have to stand, fellow passengers place luggage on their neighboring seats. This is what happened on the evening of Maundy Thursday on a regional train from Munich Central Station to Salzburg. As the federal police reported, a 58-year-old man from Chieming was sitting in a four-person compartment, with luggage occupying the three seats around him. He sent away several fellow travelers who would have liked to sit down, saying that he had had an operation on his foot and needed the space to stretch out his leg. A 56-year-old from Feldmoching didn’t want to accept that and – according to the police “after a short, heated discussion” – took a suitcase from his seat and put it in the luggage rack. According to police witnesses, he did this calmly and without aggression. Then the 56-year-old took a seat with his daughter.
The everyday dispute could have ended here, but the suitcase was apparently not completely closed and files fell out. The 56-year-old offered to keep the papers, but the suitcase owner did not accept. Instead, he called the police. At the Ostbahnhof, officers were waiting for the train to take the two men to the station “to clarify the facts.”
The 58-year-old disliked this so much that he was “very angry,” according to the police. At the same time, an “initial informational inquiry” revealed that he could have been guilty of bodily harm by kicking the 56-year-old. The suspect did not want to show the officers his ID or let them finish. “He constantly interrupted the officers and spoke loudly to uninvolved travelers on the platform,” the police report says. After the police had taken care of everything, everyone involved was allowed to leave.
The federal police now want to clarify whether the 58-year-old was actually guilty of bodily harm. He, in turn, announced a “prospect of service complaint,” according to the press release. Will the man also complain that the police changed the F in his complaint to an S? After all, the police immediately admit this violation of the rules.