It was just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening when more than two dozen shots were suddenly fired at Hamborner Altmarkt in Duisburg.

Cell phone videos show a crowd running towards the entrance to a snack bar, windows being smashed there, and passers-by trying to get behind cars to safety.

Screams and shouts can be heard.

Around 100 young men were involved in the disturbing events, four of them were seriously injured.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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It was not finally clear on Thursday why the brutal confrontation took place.

"What we can confirm is that both rockers and clan members were involved," said Duisburg police chief Alexander Dierselhuis.

The 15 people who were arrested on Wednesday evening by police officers who quickly moved together can all be assigned either to the “Hells Angels” rocker group or to an extended Turkish-Lebanese family that has been known to the police for a long time.

According to a report in the "Bild" newspaper, the escalation is said to have occurred because the Duisburg "Hells Angels" recently excluded a member of this Turkish-Lebanese family clan from their ranks.

The security authorities have been observing for some time that the rocker and the criminal clan milieu overlap in many places.

In Bremen, a member of the Miri clan even ran a rocker club for a while so that it could be used for illegal business.

In Duisburg, the police have been very successful in the fight against both rockers and criminal clans in recent years.

"Incidents of this type, of this intensity, have not existed for a long time," said the Duisburg police chief.

He does not expect a further or even permanent escalation.

"Taking violence onto the streets like this is bad for organized crime."

The North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) spoke of shocking images.

The incident shows how important it is to stay on the ball with the problem.

"Clan crime is not a PR invention, but a huge problem that terrifies people, especially in the Ruhr area." During his tenure, more than ten million euros in clan assets were siphoned off and more than 170 arrest warrants were issued against clan criminals .

"I am firmly convinced that if we hadn't cracked down so harshly, there would have been scenes like the one in Duisburg more often."