What happened in Stuttgart? Sunday, June 21, political condemnations followed one another in Germany after looting of shops and scuffles between several hundred young people and the police in Stuttgart on the night of Saturday to Sunday.

More than a dozen police officers were slightly injured and around twenty people were arrested during the urban violence which, according to local authorities, broke out after a police check at around midnight for a drug case which has degenerated.

Several hundred young people, up to 500, then headed in small groups to the city center to spread chaos for several hours.

Often wearing hoods to avoid being identified, they "severely damaged police cars parked on the street by breaking their windows with iron bars, poles," law enforcement said in a statement. .

Sacked Stores

They "threw stones and paving stones removed from the public highway or from construction sites towards other vehicles of the police forces which circulated", and attacked members of the police forces.

On their way, the rioters also smashed several shop windows, while store fronts were looted, in particular on one of the main shopping arteries of the metropolis, as various amateur videos circulating on social networks show.

Unlike other countries in Europe, or the United States, this type of urban violence is rare in Germany. The shock among political leaders was all the greater.

"These incredible scenes left me speechless," said city police chief Frank Thomas Berger. "I have never seen anything like it in my 46 year career in the police."

Political motivation excluded

Local politician for the Social Democratic Party in Stuttgart, Sascha Binder, spoke of "scenes worthy of a civil war" and "street fighting", asking that all the light be shed on the "horrible night that has known Stuttgart ".

The head of government of the region, Baden-Württemberg, in the south-west of the country, Winfried Kretschmann, denounced "the brutal eruption of violence" and "criminal acts".

Its Interior Minister, Thomas Strobl, has promised heavy sanctions. "The violence we experienced during the night in Stuttgart is of unprecedented scale" in the region, he told the daily Die Welt.

Similar incidents had already occurred in the previous weekends in the city but were of a much smaller magnitude.

The police ruled out any political motivation on the part of the rioters and rather leaned on revelers, gathered in the city center on a hot night, because the clubs and discotheques are always closed.

Of the twelve non-Germans arrested, the police chief said that they were from countries like Croatia, Portugal, but also Somalia or Afghanistan.

With AFP

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