The situation in the area around the Pasing train station seems to have calmed down since the federal and state police have increased their presence there. Around the turn of the year, robberies and violent crimes by young people had increased, but after the police were able to arrest a total of seven suspects by last Thursday, no new incident has become known. According to police spokesman Jakob Siebentritt, it is obvious “that the latest arrests are helping to combat the phenomenon.” The investigators are now looking for clues to the connection, but “as things stand, the suspects cannot be described as youth gangs,” he explained. The groupings do not seem to be composed homogeneously enough for this.
The series began on New Year’s Eve when a 52-year-old was beaten up by a group of young people on the station forecourt. A little later, young people independently of one another reported that around a dozen young men had just stolen fireworks from them. Then, on January 2, two teenagers were attacked by around 15 males, who took their mobile phones, purses and bags. On the same day, a group of four unbuttoned the soccer ball of two other teenagers on a soccer field – the alleged perpetrators were identified a few days later. A 16-year-old and a 22-year-old had previously been relieved of cell phones, money and other valuables by another gang of four. In this case, the police quickly arrested three young men – a 20-year-old has been in custody since then because he is said to have threatened the victims with a knife. In all cases, the perpetrators used physical violence.
The police have no concrete explanation for this cluster of robberies and bodily harm. In general, the area around the Pasing train station and the shopping center next door is a popular meeting place for young people, and “where there are many young people, there is a lot of juvenile delinquency,” says Siebentritt. The same applies to the east of Munich, where juvenile delinquents caused a stir around the subway station and the shopping mall in the Messestadt Riem last summer: In one case, a 21-year-old even died in an alleged drug deal .
In the Corona period, the places established themselves as meeting places
The public spaces around the Pasing and Riem arcades with their places to stay had gained in importance as contact points for young people during the corona pandemic because most leisure facilities were closed. Even after the lockdowns, the meeting points seem to have lost none of their appeal far beyond the immediate vicinity. Last year, the police headquarters noted in its security report the observation “that groups from different parts of the city (…) are forming at various locations”. Police spokesman Jakob Siebentritt adds: “In this area of phenomena, we can always identify fluctuations, some of which occur without concrete reasons and appear to be random.”
In any case, the current crimes in Pasing are not only the fault of young people in Pasing, according to the police: “Often those involved in such crimes come from more distant districts or from the districts around Munich.” In any case, two teenagers from the districts of Fürstenfeldbruck and Weilheim-Schongau were among those recently arrested. This leads to the conclusion that the connection to the railway network plays a role at crime scenes such as Pasing and Riem.
The Munich police headquarters is currently still evaluating the figures for its annual crime statistics, but “according to current knowledge, the districts of Riem and Pasing do not have higher crime rates in the field of juvenile crime,” it says. The recent attention is due to “few, but high-quality crimes”.