Because of a forbidden admission ritual at a mobile police task force in Leipzig, there were searches of numerous suspects on Wednesday.
The private apartments and workplaces of 23 officers from the Saxony State Criminal Police Office (LKA) in the Leipzig area were searched, as the Dresden Public Prosecutor announced.
Numerous pieces of evidence as well as storage media and communication devices were confiscated.
The background is investigations against a total of 25 LKA officers between the ages of 29 and 54 who are members of the Mobile Task Force (MEK) Leipzig, as well as a police doctor on suspicion of dangerous bodily harm in office and theft with weapons.
At the beginning of December 2020, at a service event on the premises of the MEK in Leipzig, they are said to have carried out a forbidden admission ritual for two new commandos as a "closing procedure" of their probationary period.
This was done on the instructions of a group leader and with the approval of the commando leader.
Several shots from a training weapon with colored ammunition
One of the two commando newcomers is said to have been hit and injured by several shots from a police training weapon with colored ammunition.
Protective measures were deliberately disregarded.
The injured person suffered hematomas, which were treated medically by the police doctor present.
According to the LKA, two leading officials are considered the main perpetrators.
You were forbidden to carry out official business on Wednesday with immediate effect.
According to the investigation, the practice ammunition used in the event was stolen without authorization.
The case was uncovered in connection with the so-called ammunition affair of the Mobile Task Force Dresden.
LKA officials stole at least 7,000 rounds of ammunition in 2018.
"Tests of courage or admission rituals do not belong in the police force," said the President of the State Criminal Police Office in Saxony, Sonja Penzel.
"Not only were the limits of civilized cooperation exceeded here, but official training equipment was misused."