Cologne police are to increase tenfold the police deployment in the city on New Year’s Eve to prevent a repeat of last year’s sexual assaults on hundreds of women.
Almost a year on, a state inquiry chief has admitted that only a handful of convictions will result from those attacks by roaming men, including non-nationals and asylum seekers.
On Monday, authorities presented their security plan for the city and, in particular, the area between Cologne central station and its Gothic cathedral. Traditionally a centre of regional new year celebrations, just 150 police were deployed there to manage massive crowds last year; this number will now be boosted to 1,500.
The entire area will be floodlit, new high-resolution cameras have been installed, a major bridge across the river Rhine will be closed to pedestrians and a rapid-reaction service will allow redeployment of police where needed.
Eyes of the world
Police chief Jürgen Mathies said that, with the eyes of the world on Cologne this New Year’s Eve, he was determined not to repeat the mistakes of last year.
“We weren’t capable when people needed us,” he said, apologising again to women left to fend for themselves.
In addition to the city police, 600 orderlies will carry out security checks and 800 federal police will be on call throughout the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).
From early on the evening of December 31st, 2015, festivities in the crowded central city square were marred by drunken revellers attacking each other with broken beer bottles and throwing bangers at passersby and each other.
After the Cologne police claimed that the celebrations had passed off without incident, hundreds of women took to social media to describe their horrific experiences, prompting the police chief to resign.
An NRW state inquiry heard from psychologists who treated women left traumatised after being surrounded by groups of men who pulled up their skirts and grabbed their bottoms and breasts.
Even when the women reached police, many complained that officers failed to intervene or pretended not to notice them. One psychologist told the inquiry that the women’s own tights had offered greater protection from gropers than had the city police.
Full report
Mr Peter Wiesenbach, head of an NRW state parliament inquiry that has heard more than 170 witnesses, will present a full report in the new year. He said on Monday that security cameras in use at the time did not produce usable evidence, while complainants were more preoccupied with fending off their attackers than taking note of their faces.
“For criminal cases, courts need firm evidence, and that is what is lacking from this night,” said Mr Wiesenbach, dubbing the Cologne attacks and aftermath a “judicial capitulation”.
A year on, some 1,222 criminal complaints have been filed in Cologne, including 513 for sexual violence. Some 333 suspects have been identified and named by investigators, with cases brought against 35 people. Some 24 of that number were tried and sentenced; 820 cases are still open, including 372 sexual assault cases, because of difficulty identifying the perpetrators.
Similar attacks took place in other major German cities. Some 245 women in Hamburg filed criminal complaints, leading to just four trials and one conviction.
