The training is intensive, and even after that I wasn't on my own.

Everyone is assigned a practical trainer, an experienced patrolman, also known as a bear handler.

On my first day, there was a bodybuilder standing in front of me, 1.90 meters tall, a bear in the truest sense of the word.

In the beginning I rode along, listened and learned: taking the first ad, how I proceed, how I speak, what I say, all under his supervision.

Vehicle control is one of the things you practice a lot.

The training there is at a very high level.

But, as we have now sadly discovered, you can never prepare for everything.

We practice terrorist operations, killing sprees.

But the most dangerous are the situations you don't expect.

On patrol

There has to be a certain tension and readiness.

Depending on how many strips go on shift, you talk to each other, always in teams of two to patrol the areas.

If we are then on the road, we pay attention to abnormalities in the driving style.

For example, if the person drives in a wavy line, we stop them.

We stop behind the vehicle to be checked, which is important at night.

If we put ourselves in front of it, two things can happen: First, the headlights blind me and I can't see into the car.

Secondly, there is a risk that he will run over me.

If we stand behind it, we are safe and can follow him even if he flees.

Sometimes we let the control center know that we are checking and try to see how many people are in the car.

Tinted windows make that more difficult. One checks, the other secures, we approach it from both sides.

The hand on the gun is rather the exception, because the average citizen is afraid.

But I'm mentally prepared to pull the gun just in case.

I hold the flashlight in one hand;

when the window is down, I ask that the engine be turned off.

If routine creeps in because nothing happened 100,000 times, that's bad.

I always know: I have to be careful.

In civilian clothes

Missions without a uniform are the exception rather than the rule. We do that when we want to observe something and in situations where you can't appear in uniform because people are running away from you. In the case of drug-related crime, for example, or when a residential area is broken into at night. So I don't have any other sense of security. I sometimes shake my head when I forget that I'm driving civilians and a car with 70 passes next to me in the 50 zone. Then I have to make it clear to myself that "Police" isn't written thick and bold on my car; because everyone drives correctly.

If I then get out of the car or want to check someone, I make sure to present myself as a police officer in good time.

Most don't ask for their service ID, and even if they do, very few know what an original service ID looks like.

The card also differs from country to country.

A tricky situation

It was a sunny spring morning when a silver SUV pulled out of a forest track onto a country road.

Because there is hunting in the area, we wanted to check.

It was like always, I got out and went to the driver's door.

When I saw the elderly gentleman, around 75 years old, and asked about his papers, he just looked at me with wide eyes and said: nothing.

A moment later he reached into the driver's door and pulled out a knife.

I took a step back and pulled out my gun, telling him to put the knife down.

My security colleague was standing on the passenger side and couldn't see the knife in the driver's door.