The scandal over the small number of police officers on duty during the New Year’s Eve migrant crime wave in Cologne is to intensify after is transpires there were fewer on the beat than initially reported.
New figures made public just days before tomorrow’s opening of the parliamentary inquiry into the public order and policing failure have shown far from the 140 officers initially reported to have been available on New Year’s Eve, there were actually just 80.
Where the Cologne force found an extra 60 imaginary police officers on the night has not yet been explained, but a force spokesman blamed “misinformation in the early stage of reporting” for the misunderstanding. Over a week after the attacks and as they were reaching a global prominence though exposure in the new media, Police Chief Superintendent Michael Temme — a spokesman for the force — claimed that from 2,100 on New Year’s Eve “143 police officers were in use at the station”, reports the Cologne Express.
What started as a rowdy party that night, with fireworks being thrown, soon intensified into a serious episode of lawlessness as migrant criminals realised the very small number of police officers available meant they could act without consequence. Up to 1,000 individuals were present at the start of the evening, and a presently unknown number of migrant males partied into the night.
These men preyed upon women going to and from the central railway station, and beat German men who attempted to intervene. In the weeks after the event the Cologne police received well over 1,000 complaints of sexual assault, rape, and theft from the night. Breitbart London translated and published the full list for the public record.
Cologne’s police chief got the sack from the local government a week after the attacks, with the state home secretary claiming his early retirement would restore public faith in the police. Yet his departure did not come before it was revealed Chief Wolfgang Albers had actually requested reinforcements on the night from the same politician who would fire him just days later. Incredibly, the request for extra officers was denied.
On the night there were so many offenders present at the Cathedral and Railway station and so few officers that individuals arrested were observed to be released owing to insufficient vehicles being available to take them to a station, and once there not enough cells to put them in.