Dozens of people had gathered in front of Herbert Reul’s house, set fire to Bengalos, shouted slogans and held up banners with unknown labels.
Apparently, CDU politician Herbert Reul was not at home at the time of the march.
(Photo: Martin Meissner / AP)
In the vicinity of the private home of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) in Leichlingen, there was a “spontaneous meeting” of unknown masked people on Sunday afternoon. This was announced by the police at the request of the German press agency with. According to dpa information, it was a group of 20 to 50 people who moved through the streets of the 28,000-inhabitant city in the Rhenish-Bergisch district.
Some of the rioters detonated Bengalos in front of the home of the interior minister, shouted slogans and held up banners with an unknown label, the police said in the evening. Of the Cologne city gazette reportsthat, according to witnesses, projectiles were also dropped at Reul’s domicile. A neighbor is said to have reported a heavily smoking object in the garden. After neighbors alerted the police, the squad went on the run.
The police moved out in the afternoon with three hundred teams and tried to get an overview of the situation. A police helicopter also circled over the area until late in the evening. Witnesses were heard and statements evaluated. The police searched intensively for the perpetrators of the riot, some of whom are said to have fled to a nearby forest. According to information from Cologne city gazette the CDU politician was not at home on Sunday afternoon. His house is usually guarded by the police.
A 31-year-old known from the left spectrum was arrested and released a little later, the police said. To what extent he was involved in the meeting could therefore not be conclusively clarified.
The police reported in the statement in the evening: “The background of the meeting is still unclear, the action could possibly have been in connection with the new assembly law.”