Being checked when entering Germany from the Netherlands isn't so unusual though, as there are lots of people trafficking drugs across the border (mostly on a small scale though). Friends of mine got checked several times as well even though they're "European looking", but I haven't heard from cases where people got taken to a police station for further inquiry.
As a German I'm sorry that this happened, because I actually think we got one of the most friendly and helpful police forces in Europe.
Concerning your dismissal at the police station: As far as I know you would have had the right to be driven back to your original location in Munich afterwards. My advice: Complain. In Germany, this is the best way to get what you want :D
The author wasn't just "checked" (which I assume happens to everyone on the bus), he was asked to get off the bus, searched again on a public street, heard disparaging comments made about him by a police office, and was again checked in the police station and asked to strip naked.
Of course I wasn't there and I don't actually know what happened, but from the version of events written here there's a very obvious and very uncomfortable conclusion to be reached. The thing about racism like this is that there's always an element of plausible deniability to it. No cop is going to come out and say "we're detaining you because you're black and you fit the profile", but when it does happen to you it's very obvious what's going on.
If anyone is curious, the author's image can be found on his company's website. He's David Asabina - http://en.solarswing.nl/our-team/
Perhaps we could experimentally test your hypothesis of friendly police behaviour. Start wearing dreadlocks, put on baggy pants and some other more 'hip-hop' looking clothes. Put some colour on your face and make it look darker.
Do this for a year, and _then_ tell us what you think.
You don’t even have to dress differently, just change your skin color. I dress conservatively, similar to my white friends who share the same socio-economic profile, but our experiences with the police have been vastly different (I’m in the U.S and talking about the Boston area).
There's nothing like the irony of trying to combat bigotry with generalizations.
One can't help one's colour, but one can help one's hairstyle and clothes. How one presents oneself is one aspect of one's communication with others, to include the police. If one broadcasts the message, 'I am likely to be a petty criminal' to the police, one should expect to be harassed.
If you are in a business suit and wearing a nice tie, regardless of skin color, you will be treated well.
Politics are making sure they are and breathe down their necks all day. The CSU wants nothing more than an escalation so they can show their voters how hard they crack down on the "evil migrants".
This is going too far. The CSU is against immigration so they would prefer if the refugee crisis would be over. They also really _are_ scared of not "integrating" refugees properly, so the idea that they would prefer a failure seems far-fetched to me.
It's a shame but no wonder that police force turns abrasive so often given that they handle so many abrasive people.
But you're not Chef, you're just a guy making a routine breakfast or lunch. As time goes by you get used to the routine. It's just an omelette or sandwich, you'll never think of each particular one once it's consumed. If there's a hole in an omelette, or the bread in the sandwich is skewed, you won't even remember it later in the day. It's just a thing you do every day, and despite any earlier desire to be the best omelette or sandwich maker, the only really important thing is that you've eaten.
Those cops do that job every day, and the only important thing to them is that they've taken someone off the bus and searched them, and they can then report that. Discovery of contraband is just a bonus.
The do it every day, and unless they find something they will never see "you" ever again. In fact they don't even see "you" during the event. You're just a resource so that they can make a report.
You're just a resource.
Would it ever occur to you to apologize to your sandwich for being less than perfect?
Would it ever occur to those police to notice the individual, in a routine played out every day, and apologise or even acknowledge?
You're just a resource.
So no, it's not excuse, never was, never will be.
There are always A-holes around in the police but consistently getting the frisky treatment would make me wonder if something in my appearance could be seen as cop-bait. Maybe the dreads and the weed silhouette on your cap? Just kidding, but since we don't know what you looked like, it's hard to tell if what happened to you was plain bad luck or something in your looks and/or expressed attitude. Definitely not something that happens to everyone.
Possible benefits include:
-- Getting a straight answer.
-- Breaking the mental model whereby the police are dehumanizing you and/or lumping you into a certain profile.
-- Getting a response so nasty it's easier to get them into trouble later on. :)
I've actually worked with the Police. ALL training is about asserting power when dealing with suspects (a suspect is anyone you stop or talk to - no matter what the circumstances; think about how many people reporting a crime actually end up being arrested themselves due to something they say which incriminates them, even in something tangential and unrelated to what they are reporting).
The moment someone tries to reassert control, training is to respond with additional aggressive responses to overwhelm resistance. Call in backup, draw a taser/gun/baton, physically take hold of the person etc.
Try pulling things like talking about your consulting projects and asking for a guarantee about making a meeting and you'll be lucky not to be face down on the ground in under 5 seconds and spend the next 24 hours sitting in a cell.
In all my years, I think I probably met less than 5 colleagues who could proportionately and reasonably interact with people, defuse tensions and remain in control (of both the situation and themselves). All the rest relied solely on the power assertion training and some couldn't even interact with other police officers without trying to assert power over each other. That always got nasty, especially when they did it to someone who, like them, didn't know how to back down or defuse a situation.
Unless you have a crack team of lawyers monitoring your every move, your best approach is to be compliant and non-confrontation. Remember as much detail as you can (especially names/numbers) and make a formal complaint later on, via a lawyer if possible, once you're out of custody (and preferably out of easy reach - remember the police are 24x7, they can expend huge resources to hound you out of sheer vexatiousness. You have to sleep. They don't.).
Haven't tried that with police, but it worked in other cases where I had to interact with people who had the means to ruin my day.
You can connect with anyone on a personal level but you need to have people skills. If you're confrontational and non compliant you're setting yourself up for this power contest you can't win.
Probably it helps that I'm a 6'4" white educated male, with a nice smile I think.
-- Getting a response so nasty it's easier to get "you" into trouble "now"
I have tried this (I am from India). Any question to authority, whether police or TSA or Immigration officers will make sure that instead of ~30 mins, you will end up wasting 3-4 hours.
Of course, results might be different if you belong to the same race as officer. But that was the point of the article.
If it's "challenge", I understand your point. If it's "question", then even though I'm a white male who's unlikely to be adversely profiled, I'm still tempted to wonder whether you're doing it wrong.
I know the comment was tongue-in-cheek, but it bears mentioning: when dealing with the police, your objective should be to escape the situation unscathed, not to provoke them. Remember that criminal charges, severe injury, or even death are possible consequences of any encounter with law enforcement.
Made for a fun punchline when explaining the "bus factor" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor at a talk I gave at a company conference later on.
Apparently there was some sort of festival happening and they assumed we would belong to another group of people and our driver looked sufficiently like a druggie I guess.
But being polite and understanding of the situation you can get out of this usually without much of a hassle.
I'm afraid Racial Profiling is still real.
As is normal, everyone's train ticket was checked (including mine), but when they came to a group of Chinese tourists, there was a problem with one passenger - he'd pre-purchased 3 months prior with a credit card, but the credit card had since been stolen during their international trip. In Germany, Deutsche Bahn require you to present the exact credit card used to purchase your ticket as identification when asked.
The ticket inspector didn't believe the passenger, saying "If your card really was stolen, your replacement card will be the same number" and "If your credit card was stolen you would go to the police to report it." I spoke up at this point in support, explaining that in other countries (at least in Australia), you get a new credit card number so thieves can't use the old number online. But the officer was convinced card numbers were immutable. The passenger did have a police report, but the German officer said "This case number is for British Police, checking this is too difficult."
The inspector asked for the passengers passport - understandably the passenger was not about to surrender his main identification to someone else. The inspector said he could not assist if he did not see the passport, and the passenger then allowed him to see the passport. But when he provided it, the inspector looked at it, then said "Thank you, I now take this, you do not get this back until the police arrive and the police will decide if they give it back to you."
The passenger was part of a tour group, and all of the other tickets had been valid. They asked if they would all be arrested, the inspector said no, but when they asked if they could accompany him to the police station, the inspector said "No, you are not allowed to, only he can go with the police." The entire group all got out at the next stop anyway, where the passenger was arrested by police. After an argument the police did allow the tour group to follow, at least through Munich Station for as far as I could see.
TLDR: the passenger had a successfully pre-purchased ticket, had passport identification that matched the payment details, bank & police statements to support his story of a stolen credit card, but he was still arrested by Munich police. And Munich was only a stop they were passing through during their train journey! I adore Germany, but seeing this left a terrible impression. That Deutsche Bahn card ID policy is crazy, and something is very wrong with Munich's authorities. I'll stick to Berlin next time.
"Luckily", i'm caucasian and i speak French, but god help me if i had been of north African phenotype (and for the uninitiated: we're talking about French-speaking born-in-France natives who still get treated like shit) — that's the favourite scapegoat in this part of the world :/.
EDIT: In fact, the whole idea of identifying myself on public transport gives me the shivers. I much prefer the situation where you simply buy anonymous tickets that are valid to the bearer. IMHO the rail authorities have no business knowing who i am, especially since in most cases you're not even crossing borders. And even when you are, they're more likely than not Schengen, in which case there's theoretically no place for the shake-down either. Compare the case where you're sitting in a car — checks are very rare in my experience.
> You've got actual, state-provided ID that matches, a valid ticket, but they still give you lip. It's incredible.
So the identity check on the trains is more strict than on the planes (there one needs only national ID or passport with the name matching the name from the reservation). It seems to be the case in at least France and Germany. How come?
I've seen this happening on a Deutsche Bahn train Berlin-Dresden. It was a young backpacker not speaking German. He had a printout confirming that he booked the ticket online. The conductor demanded to see the exact physical card the guy used to pay for the booking. The guy said it was a virtual card and physically it doesn't even exist (even in case of a traditional credit/debit card one doesn't have to have it physically to be a legitimate owner and to make legitimate transactions). The conductor said the ticket is invalid and the guy has to buy a new one (sic!). He was going to Prague and had to pay again for a ride to the border with Czech Republic. WTF Deutsche Bahn?!
I, knowing people here are at odds with credit/debit cards and online booking, bought the ticket from a human by the counter (not without a queue) and didn't have any problems.
- Drive in a (new) Audi A3 on lease:
Get stopped every other time. Completely strip my car and luggage. Throw everything on the ground until everything was spread in a 3m radius around my car. Leave me to pick everything up and tetris it back into the trunk and instead start complaining about how the car is not registered on the same name as my passport.
- Drive in a used Toyota Prius:
<blank>
It's disturbing that the Germans unilaterally decided to abolish the Schengen zone. Temporarily they say.
By now I guess I've aged out of the target group, so they leave me alone. And I don't look like the OP.
The stricter controls that have been in place for the last weeks, which also only involve randomized searches on a slightly larger scale but only at several points of the border, are also legally covered under the Schengen accord and serve the purpose to get a better handle on the thousands of unregistered immigrants flowing into Germany every day (this year alone, more than 1.5 million regugees might come to Germany, many of them completely unregistered). Concerning the scale of the current crisis I think these measures are absolutely appropriate and not overly extreme.
Young man - check. From Amsterdam - check. Dutch passport - check. Dark skin - check. Dreadlocks - check
In their mind this kid was going to have dope on him no matter what.
The Netherlands have much stricter asylum laws than Germany has, with or without border controls. Maybe you could take some of the 1.5 million refugees, that will arrive in Germany this year. You took only 25k last year. Stuff like the border controls are really just measurements to prevent our versions of Geert Wilders from gaining traction.
Fewer come here because of the location - this would only be your first entry point in the EU if you arrive at the airport - and the fact that it's not a famous, charismatic country. They want to go where they have friends and family first, failing that, they want to go to an English speaking country, failing that, next choice are Germany and France. Any other place they end up is mostly settling for what happens to work out.
Any way, I used to get a similar (less extreme) treatment way back in the 90's, before refugees were an issue.
Edit: and I obviously don't look like a refugee. The events destribed by the OP were obviously a drug bust.
And finally: if ever faced with such a situation, does a person have the right to a) record everything that happens on the phone (including faces of the police officers + audio), and b) if asked to stop, would it be ok to say "i have the right to record all you do" or something similar?
You generally have quite a few rights at police checks. For example, you are allowed to decline a breath test. The problem with these rights is, that you lose time if you exercise them, because they will take you to the station. So they are not that useful in cases like this.
It is highly unlikely that the German police will beat you up or something like that, but you will have wasted some hours. Just be friendly and do not confess anything. Especially at traffic stops, they will ask you why they stopped you. Just say you do not know, because you do not have to incriminate yourself.
[0]: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/bundesverfassungsgericht-ur...
https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_rights_of_defendants_in_...
edit: ah, that's only for "England and Wales", I misread. Someone's got link on actual EU law extract? (is there even any EU law for this?)
Anyway that doesn't even bother me, sure racial profiling for security checks are degrading but it doesn't affect me much personally in my life, it's a minor nuisance all things considered. What depresses me is, you recall that guy on HN who tried to find an apartment in Munich?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8360390
> The conclusion from this little study, is that a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate. The master of all, is the young munich guy who is around 25
That's racial profiling, too. It's based on the same principles of racial profiling, that we judge people based on their ethnicity rather than as individuals who happened to have a certain skin color, and then treat people differently. And obviously it's not just trying to find a home to rent, it's jobs etc etc.
On one occasion the seemingly plain-clothed officers flashed a badge and started rifling through my jean pockets in the same motion. I actually thought I was being mugged.
After the fact they were all smiles and conversation, but whatever the local laws are, they're badly missing the point of who they're trying to protect.
OP should write a nice thank you letter to the München cops for disabusing him of this notion. It was his responsibility as an adult to have learned long ago that the authorities are not your friends and the cops are not on your side.
Just imagine the nasty policies of total fascist police empowerment that he's probably been voting for with ideas like that. Maybe a little education will have straightened him out a bit.
Really, people who expect an encounter with the cops to be respectful, convenient, not humiliating, fair, decent, honest, voluntary, or inexpensive are a part of the problem. I'm glad OP is wiser and I hope he will now run his life with due consideration for how things are instead of some childish fantasy of how things should be.
It's imperative to memorize the rules of legal limits and rights you have with cops in any country you transit often. In those you visit just once, memorize the phrase "I demand to speak to my embassy immediately," but learn to be patient because it takes a very long time to work. In America, learn to say "I do not consent to a search," and "I want to speak to a lawyer," and "am I free to go," and don't say anything else.
I don't know the rules for Germany, but OP needs to.
So go look them up, OP. It's your responsibility now that you've been educated. Also, if there's a citizen grievance procedure, it's your immediate responsibility to file one.
All of the encounters I've had with British police have always been fantastic, they're always respectful, tell you exactly what they're stopped you for, what's going to happen next. I'm glad I live in a country where I don't have to fear the police.
Just because cops might have too much power in the states and sometimes get armed with former military equipment doesn't mean you need to generally expect cops to act in bad faith the way you describe. It's not some "childish fantasy" that it's not like that in other countries, it's reality in may that police are generally courteous.
There was a similar discussion on here recently about it being a 'rookie mistake' to approach work situations in good faith and that you should have everything on contractual basis and getting a lawyer. That's such a horrible approach to live and again, from what I hear it seems to some degree be an unfortunate reality in the states, but that does not mean that it should be accepted like this and that it's just an inevitable part of a society.
Don't let yourself get into this situation, folks!
I handed my UK drivers license. They asked me if I had an arrest record, but with my poor German, I thought they meant if I was registered in Munich, so I mumbled an affirmative. One officer stepped back to radio in my details and check my record. The other asked me if I had any drugs. I said no. He asked me to show him the inside folds of my wallet and the contents of my pocket. He didn't actually actively search me himself, just made me show him that I didn't have any drugs squirreled away.
The whole thing was surreal and over in 3-4 minutes. Streams of workers walking by during the whole event. I was shaking with adrenaline and itching to protest against this unprovoked intrusion into my life. But I stayed calm and they moved on. It was a weird experience. I'm only glad that they didn't actively search me, it would have made the whole thing even more demeaning.
I assume I was singled out for three reasons: - My baggy pants, loose tshirt combination - My slightly not white enough skin color. - The ridiculous and increased police presence that always seems to surround Munich a few times a year (usually around the time of the Munich Security Conference but not always: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Security_Conference).
FWIW, I've never had problems with other Munich civil servants. They are usually just doing their work, and if you're polite/pleasant, it's usually reciprocated. The police on the other hand seem to have a bug up their ass (except during Oktoberfest, where they also seem more relaxed). I have a dark skinned friend in Munich who gets controlled every few months. Once while eating his lunch in tiny park in the heart of Munich on a sunny day surrounded by other citizens!
This Wu Tang encounter with Munich police sums it all up: http://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhAonAI6tetw...
This realization doesn't seem to ever strike some people their entire lives. When harassment by authority is a common occurrence and a source of anxiety it's difficult to keep up appearances.
You simply pick someone where common experience shows that a "hit" is likely. Like, in Munich if you search a black dude with his friends, chances are high that he's got pot on him. In other cities, being young, white and speak with "gangsta speak" and hanging out with your friends can be an invitation for the police to check if you got knives on you. Or if you generally behave nervous, check if the person has an arrest warrant open instead of just looking at the ID card.
There are no official quotas to fill like in the US, but it is definitely better if you profile and have a "good looking" checked person/hit ratio.
Chances are high that a black dude has pot on him, or chances are high that a dude with pot on him is black? Those are actually two different things.[1]
[0] http://en.solarswing.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/portret_d...
Yes. No matter how good a police force's reputation, once you're in their hands, you better make sure you make them feel respected if you want to get out of their grasp quickly. Otherwise, trouble.
That said, German police in general are pretty laid back and respectful in my experience :-)
I imagine the recent US cases of police impropriety will stir some changes. At least it held some attention for a while.
On another note, when I'm treated badly by the system, I tend to feel a bit sorry for the person on the other end eventually. It's dehumanizing to not be able to behave in the way you find reasonable, and I doubt most cops think it's useful to randomly stop people for no reason. Same goes with the bureaucrat who won't approve your passport because you're smiling in the photo. These people would most likely not like to do as they do, but they are as powerless as their victims. When you meet them, you tell yourself not to get angry; they are trained to do as they are told, not to think. And that sucks for everyone.
This is a standing problem, not one of us is immune, we should be fixing it in the future.
Just to be more clear, potential as probability higher than a certain value (not being 100% right)
> how would the police be expected to act when dealing with a potential trafficker with a fake passport?
I mean, maybe he had an amazing fake passport and body cavities full of drugs but it is a bit difficult to roll the dice on those assumptions if 1) the passport is real 2) he didn't.
They didn't have evidence. I've dabbled in my fare share of narcotics as well, and if you could "smell" it. It was only possible to mean some sort of cannibus. What human could smell an oz of Coke inside another human? Seems like a pretty broad over reach here, either straight up incompetence or racism.
Which does not imply all the actions taken were correct
