The Schwanthalerhöhe is a colourful, neighborly and peaceful quarter. The fact that the police are planning to send a voluntary security guard on patrol there from May, even though the crime rate is comparatively low, is met with incomprehension by many residents. Protests are stirring in the district: around 150 residents protested against the plans last Friday. In other quarters, too, resistance to the police’s attempts to set up security guards has formed. Only recently the district committees of Aubing-Lochhausen-Langwied and Pasing-Obermenzing spoke out against such a concept.
In the Westend, neither citizens nor district representatives consider a security guard to be necessary. “We get along well,” emphasized Christina Chatziparasidou (SPD) at the meeting of the district committee (BA) on Tuesday. There is no feeling of fear in the district. On the contrary: a citizen warned that a voluntary patrol would create insecurity in the first place. The appearance of a security guard could trigger conflicts, so the fear. The “peaceful coexistence” on the Schwanthalerhöhe is endangered. Senior citizens could be irritated by the patrols, said senior citizens’ representative Monika Obermeyer. The fear of “fake police officers” could be fueled in this way.
Instead of introducing a security guard, it would be better to improve the police equipment, demanded Florian Kraus (Greens). “Why should volunteers do this?” he asked. Kraus fears that ambitious helpers will exceed their powers and “could sometimes go overboard.”
The security guard is “not an auxiliary police force,” assures the head of the police inspection
Daniela Hand, the new head of police inspection 14, presented the concept to the district committee. She assured that the staff will be specifically selected, tested and trained accordingly. The security guard is “not an auxiliary police force,” she emphasized – but neither citizens nor local politicians wanted to believe her. “That’s not true,” protested an angry citizen from the audience.
The left in the district committee appealed to the historical responsibility of the police: the introduction of a security guard could also be misunderstood as repressive violence by the police. Katharina Jarrah (Die Linke-ÖDP) reaped applause, who argued against the subjective feeling of security, which is supposed to be increased through the use of volunteers, with the “subjective feeling of freedom”: “I see that threatened by the over-presence.” The young people, whose freedom of movement has been severely restricted in the past two years due to the pandemic, now fear new regulations, said Claudia Jovanovic, head of the Intercultural Encounters and Education initiative group.
With a large majority, the district representatives agreed to the cross-party motion not to install a security guard in the west end. The head of the police inspection took note of this, but emphasized that the final decision rests with the police. “The approval of the municipality is not necessary,” explained Hand.
The plans are not only being met with rejection everywhere
The security guard is not rejected everywhere. In Trudering-Riem, the CSU parliamentary group calls for the patrols to be “the link between the population and the police”. Riemer Park could be the focus for the use of the “volunteers on patrol”. In view of “low-threshold disturbances of order, disturbances of the peace and the increasing littering” of the green area, this form of “civic engagement” could lead to a “sustainable improvement”.
There hasn’t been a vote yet. Due to a lack of information about the services already active in the park, such as the municipal green space supervisory authority, the Greens had initially requested an appointment with the district administration department, the horticultural department and the police inspectorate. The security watch is now on the agenda for Thursday. However, it is already becoming apparent that the Greens and SPD will reject them. In a joint motion for the coming meeting, the two factions declare that they do not consider the security guard to be the “right way”.