The number of crimes in front of the Pasing train station has not yet reached the peak from New Year’s Eve and the days after, but safety in the vicinity of the train station remains on the agenda for politicians, residents and authorities: At least the CSU does not consider the situation to be unproblematic .
“In our local association there is nothing that is currently being discussed more,” says local politician Sven Wackermann. “People,” he says, “have a latent feeling of insecurity.” Pedestrians avoided going through the underpass alone at night. Many people are reluctant to enter the southern forecourt, where tram 19 and many buses depart – “because there is no surveillance there”. His party colleague Winfried Hardly (CSU) reports something similar. The city council also knows people who work on the corner “and don’t dare to go out on the south side of the station in the evening”. They preferred to use the north exit, which leads to the Pasinger factory and the August-Exter settlement. Even if it means a long detour for them.
Around the turn of the year, robbery and violent crimes by young people had increased at the Pasing train station. The police were able to quickly identify and arrest the alleged perpetrators, after which the situation improved. “The number of crimes,” says Pasing’s police chief Thomas Rehag, “is now declining, nothing compared to the turn of the year.”
Pasing’s police currently assess the situation as “not so dramatic”. Neither does the federal police. “We don’t have a crime focus there,” says the spokeswoman for the Munich Inspectorate, Sina Dietsch. The fear is “above all a subjective feeling”. She supports her assessment with figures. According to this, the federal police, who together with the Pasinger colleagues and the security guards from the railways ensure security on the railway area with regular patrols, registered 46 criminal offenses at the Pasinger station from January to May 2023. These include damage to property, drug offences, violations of the Residence Act and bodily harm. In view of the 139,000 people who visited the station every day, i.e. a total of around 20 million in the period in question, not an exceptionally high number. In any case, a “strong fear of crime cannot be explained on the basis of the number of cases,” emphasizes Dietsch.
There is no increase in security-related incidents in the shopping center
The management of the immediately neighboring Pasing Arcaden has also given the all-clear. On request, it is said that “currently there is no noticeable increase in security-related incidents” in the shopping center and the immediate vicinity. CSU representatives had understood this differently, from there it was said that the security service would be “toughly addressed” and was “demanded”.
However, the CSU, FDP and Free Voters want to act “preventively”. Pasing’s CSU therefore submitted an application at the most recent district committee meeting with the demand to expand the area of activity of the municipal field service (KAD) with its municipal security forces to the area of the Pasing train station and its surroundings. However, the motion was rejected in the event of a tie. For example from the Greens, who “don’t want to boil anything up where there is no risk”. According to Thorsten Kellermann (Greens), the subjective feeling of insecurity felt by some passers-by “cannot be improved by more security forces, but only by upgrading the square”. But also from the SPD, which does not consider the municipal field service to be responsible because the station is not an urban area. From the point of view of the Social Democrats, clarifying this matter is the task of the Free State.
Pasing’s chief of police, Thomas Rehag, points out that his department’s human resources are “finite”. However, he emphasizes that his people “will immediately be on the spot again if problems arise again in the Pasing arcades and in the surrounding green areas”. Then again with youth officers and civil forces.