Dr. Frank Kawelovski


Chronicle of the police in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1945 - 2023

Foreword


This chronicle deals with the history of the North Rhine-Westphalian police force from the end of the war in 1945 to the year 2023. More than 1,000 small articles illustrate the transformation of the police force in North Rhine-Westphalia on the basis of individual events. The articles, arranged chronologically by year, deal equally with organizational, legal, technical, personal, political and social changes that have taken place in the police force or have had an impact on the police from outside.


With 17 million inhabitants, North Rhine-Westphalia is the largest federal state in the Federal Republic of Germany. The history of the North Rhine-Westphalian police is largely identical to the history of the police forces in the other "old" federal states, which were founded after the war in the territories of the American, British and French occupation zones. A comparison with the German police in the German Democratic Republic is not easily possible for the period from 1945 until the reunification of the two German states. Their developments were too different for this. With reunification, however, the police forces in the old and new federal states were largely brought into line with each other, so that the police in all 16 federal states are now at roughly the same organizational and legal level. In particular, the police uniforms of the federal states are also uniform, and police law is largely uniform.


The author of this text is the former North Rhine-Westphalian police officer Dr. Frank Kawelovski. The original German version of this chronicle can be found on the homepage "Polizeigeschichte Infopool":


https://www.polizeigeschichte-infopool.de/

 

Attention! This text has not been translated by the author, but by the translation program DeepL. Linguistic errors in the translation cannot be ruled out.


Figure 1: Checking people in the center of Essen in 1946 (source: Herstell)

40s
                                           
In April 1945, American soldiers march into the more or less destroyed Rhineland and Westphalian cities, and shortly afterwards a British military government takes over in the areas around the Rhine, Ruhr and Lippe. The police force is in a desolate state. Many officers had lost their lives in the war, were in Allied prison camps or had fled in the expectation of being held accountable for crimes against humanity committed during the National Socialist era. The security situation in the country is difficult. Poverty causes thefts, robberies and homicides and marauding groups of released forced laborers with captured Wehrmacht weapons make the streets unsafe. Averting danger places high demands on the remaining police: everywhere there are buildings in danger of collapse, unexploded bombs, grenades and impassable roads. Against this backdrop and while at the same time filtering out "National Socialist elements" in the police force, the military government tries to recruit police officers who are physically and mentally suitable for the job and at the same time not too strongly infiltrated by the ideas of the defunct Hitler regime. However, the profession of police officer is unattractive at this time. The pay and reputation of the police were low, many police families lived in abject poverty and there was a lack of vehicles, weapons, premises and everything else needed for effective police work.

1945                                   

1. May, 17. In Minden, an auxiliary police officer and a police volunteer are killed by a gang of Poles with submachine guns and hand grenades. Two other auxiliary police officers manage to escape. According to Allied regulations, the officers had to carry out their duties unarmed.
2. September, 25. In the "Guidelines of the Military Government on the Reorganization of the Police in the British Zone", the British Military Government stipulates a fundamental change to the police in the British occupation zone. The following applies: The police in Germany, especially in the British occupation zone, are to be denazified, demilitarized, decentralized and disarmed.  The police must no longer exercise any legislative or judicial powers. The training system is to be completely reoriented.  The barracked police force shall be abolished.
3. the police shall be transformed into a civilian institution. Each urban district with more than 100,000 inhabitants (SK police) and each administrative district (RB police) receives its own police force as part of decentralization: the local police authorities become the mayors and the regional presidents. In rural areas, there will be one police officer for 1,000 inhabitants, in cities one officer for 500 - 600 inhabitants, in Düsseldorf and Cologne one officer for 350 - 400 inhabitants. All police authorities must set up a criminal investigation department (CID).
4. recruitment: "zealous and active supporters" of National Socialism may not be employed as police officers.
5. a female police force, consisting of uniformed and criminal police, is to be set up in the municipal and district police forces. Women who are newly recruited to the police force must have a good school education (intermediate or higher school leaving certificate). They should be between 25 and 30 years of age, no shorter than 160 cm and without glasses. They must be single or widowed and, if possible, have previously worked in social care, nursing or as teachers. The uniformed female police should pay particular attention to male and female youths when on patrol, search and look after female prisoners and otherwise carry out investigations in uniform or plain clothes.
6. a central police school for police instructors and senior officers is set up in Hiltrup. By September 1, 1945, 100 police school teachers are to be trained, followed by a further 70 per month. In the British occupation zone, five police schools are to be set up for law enforcement officers, which are to have trained 7,500 police officers after six months.
7. arming: As part of the extensive disarmament of the police, only handguns are to be permitted for police officers. These will not be issued personally, but are to be kept at police stations. They may only be issued by the responsible officers in urgent cases. Weapons may only be available to 20% of all police officers. They are not to be carried during normal patrol duty.
8. uniforms: Officers shall wear the existing gray-green uniforms until further notice. Nazi insignia must be removed. Ranks wear a chaco as headgear, officers a cap. Lower ranks must wear a number on their uniform for easier identification.
9. water police. One of five groups of water police in the British occupation zone is set up in Cologne and one in Recklinghausen. The officers of the water police wear blue uniforms.
10. The military government sets up a so-called "coal police" in the winter of 1945/46. Due to the mass theft of coal by the freezing population, freight trains and coal heaps are to be protected. Police applicants who are too young or too old according to the current recruitment criteria are used for the coal police. The officers stand guard at the entrances to collieries or patrol the colliery and railroad premises to protect the coal.

1946       

11. February 15. Burglars kill a police officer. At around 4.00 a.m., police constable Ponwitz confronts two burglars in a grocery store on Kampstraße in Düsseldorf-Wersten. In the ensuing scuffle, one of the burglars shoots the officer dead. Ponwitz died shortly afterwards in hospital. Further investigations lead to the conviction of two suspects who confess to the murder of the police officer and more than 50 burglaries. They are sentenced to death by a British military court on May 21, 1946.        
12. July. The crime statistics for the North Rhine Province for the month of July 1946 show the following crimes: 22 murders, 118 robberies, 14,500 simple thefts, including 2,760 bicycle thefts, 3,100 field thefts and 12 narcotics offenses.
13. August 23. The British military government decrees the dissolution of the Prussian provinces and the establishment of federal states by occupation decree. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is initially formed from the former Rhine Province and the Province of Westphalia. In 1947, the district of Lippe-Detmold is incorporated. This gives the state its final territorial extension.
14. August 29. Walter Menzel (SPD) becomes the first Minister of the Interior of the new federal state.  Menzel, who holds a doctorate in law, joins the SPD in 1920, becomes a finance councillor in the Prussian Ministry of Finance and in 1931 district administrator in Weilburg an der Lahn. He was dismissed from office by the National Socialists in 1933. He subsequently worked as a lawyer. Between 1946 and 1950, he held the office of NRW Minister of the Interior, after which he remained a member of the state parliament until 1954. In 1951, he became a member of the Bundestag. He died on September 14, 1963.
15. In December 1946, the North Rhine-Westphalian police force has a target strength of 21,350 officers. The actual strength (actual strength) is 18,178 officers.
16. October, 1. The British military government merges the North Rhine Province Criminal Investigation Department (headed by Friedrich Grützmann) and the Westphalia Criminal Investigation Department (headed by Friedrich Karst) to form a state criminal investigation department in Düsseldorf. This was the forerunner of the State Office of Criminal Investigation. However, the State Office of Criminal Investigation does not initially have any investigative or executive tasks, but is merely an intelligence collection, evaluation and information office for the North Rhine-Westphalian police. The instructions for the establishment of this office stipulate, among other things, that a "professional and habitual criminals' register" and a "collection of individual fingers, palms and crime scene traces" are to be set up, that traveling offenders are to be recorded and - for the entire British occupation zone, which also includes Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein - a "police registration sheet for the region" is to be maintained.  The first head of this authority is Friedrich Karst.  Born in 1881, Karst first worked as a textile worker, then as a soldier during the First World War and, from 1919, as a police officer.
17. November, 1. Dr. Siegfried Middelhaufe becomes the first head of the police department of the Ministry of the Interior.
18. Problematic replacement for sirens. The police have to make do with old vehicles from before 1945 for motorized patrols. As these vehicles do not have sirens, makeshift sirens are introduced. In some district police authorities, the co-driver has to blow signals out of the open car window with a kind of shawm; in other authorities, signaling devices are installed on the vehicles where the co-drivers have to blow air in through a hose so that the signal sounds. The passenger seats in the official cars are not particularly popular with the officers, as it is difficult to drive on the bumpy, still war-damaged roads.The bumpy roads in North Rhine-Westphalia often caused tooth and lip injuries or caused the passengers to hyperventilate.
19. Due to the Nazi past of many police officers and their consequent non-re-employment, there are bottlenecks in the recruitment of police officers. An instruction from the British military government stipulates that, after thorough examination and training, officers from the previous police force can be recruited, as can auxiliary police officers who have been temporarily employed. Furthermore, police officers and soldiers who had been removed from their posts by the National Socialists were seen as having politically reliable potential. Young civilians between the ages of 18 and 23 who are suitable for police service are also to be recruited.
20. "Technical Instruction No. 11" of the British military government stipulates that firearms are not part of the standard equipment of police officers. They are only carried on night duty and during special operations. Ammunition is counted down to five cartridges and its consumption is to be strictly controlled by the Allied Public Safety Officer. The regulation meets with early criticism because many police leaders are of the opinion that it is not enough to control violent "displaced persons", the released forced laborers.
21. In July 1946, Inspector General Halland ordered the police to wear a blue uniform throughout the British occupation zone. Previously, officers had only worn white armbands with the words "Military Government Police" or the old green Nazi uniforms. The green uniforms are now dyed blue or new blue uniforms are produced for the officers. By 1948, all officers are finally equipped with the blue uniform.

1947

22. North Rhine-Westphalia is granted police sovereignty by the British military government.
23. The target number of police officers is 21,640, the actual number is 19,807.  
24. A decree issued by the Ministry of the Interior on 11.11.47 prohibits police officers from almost any political activity. Thus, no police officer may be a member of a political party, actively support a political party, influence other persons with regard to their party affiliation, participate in open political discussions, support a party by other means or hold conversations of a party-political nature in police stations.
25. Due to massive unrest in Dortmund, Lünen and Castrop-Rauxel, the head of the Dortmund police orders that "shaking and rifle squads" are to be formed in the event of future mass unrest. If large crowds have not dispersed even after being warned, "the shaking squad must take action against the mob". The action must be short and hard, but the crowd must not be beaten unnecessarily. If the use of the Knüttel (note: wooden batons) is not sufficient, the rifle section must be deployed. Shots should not be fired indiscriminately into the crowd, but only aimed at the knees if possible. Children should not be shot at.
26. The recruitment conditions for police candidates are revised. The following now applies: age must not be less than 20 years and not more than 30 years, the minimum height is 175 cm. In exceptional cases, applicants taller than 172 cm can also be recruited if they have above-average mental and physical abilities. Applicants should preferably be unmarried, and a good elementary school education should suffice. Furthermore, certificates, good character references, declarations of no debts and proof of good health must be provided. Refugees from the East must undergo an identification procedure. Former Wehrmacht officers and professional non-commissioned officers, former members of the police who were transferred to the Wehrmacht and members of the NSDAP and its subdivisions are excluded from recruitment. However, applicants who were classified in category V (unencumbered) as part of the denazification process or were born after 1.1.19 are excluded from this. Persecutees of the Nazi regime are to be given preference in recruitment.  
27. In almost 1,400 raids and searches against black market visitors and hoarders and 385 checks on railroad trains and access roads in 1947, the Düsseldorf police seize the following foodstuffs and luxury foods: 98 head of livestock, 8,400 kg of meat, sausage and bacon, 1,400 kg of butter and fat, 760 kg of flour and foodstuffs, 2,300 kg of sugar, 470 kg of coffee and tea and more than two million cigarettes and cigars.  Private trade in foodstuffs and luxury foods is made a punishable offense under the War Economy Ordinance and the Consumption Regulation Penal Ordinance in order to ensure the state distribution of scarce foodstuffs.
28. Unmarried police officers who have not yet reached the age of 25 must obtain official permission before getting married. Permission must only be granted if a child has already been born as a result of the marriage or is due to be born in the near future. Police officers who marry without official permission must expect to be dismissed from the police force.

1948

29. Medical examinations reveal that 50% of police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia are still suffering from malnutrition in 1948.
30. "The provisional recruitment conditions for the female police force in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia" stipulate that, as in the past, female applicants must provide proof that they have completed training as welfare workers, youth leaders or teachers.  In contrast to their male colleagues, female police officers are explicitly expected to have a "high level of education".
31. Friedrich D'heil becomes the new head of the State Criminal Police Office.
32. Metal thefts become an increasing problem and a larger field of work for the police. Drainpipes, heating systems, iron girders and other items are stolen everywhere and transported away on ladder trucks. The thieves obtain around 0.70 marks per kg of lead, 1.20 marks per kg of copper and up to 1.40 marks for bronze from so-called scrap dealers. In Cologne, officers from the uniformed police, the criminal investigation department and the telegraph offices carry out a major raid on scrap dealers on November 24. In the process, 14 dealers alone are found with material that can be identified as the property of the Post Office. The dealers' junk books are not properly kept and all dealers are brought before a magistrate. Criminal charges are brought against hundreds of dealers and metal thieves.
33. The new permanent representative of the Minister of the Interior becomes State Secretary Dr. Wilhelm Rombach. Born in Monschau/Eifel in 1884, the lawyer is initially reinstated as Mayor of Aachen by the Allies after the end of the war. He had already held this office since 1928, but was then dismissed by the National Socialists as part of their political "purges".
34. Karl Bremer becomes the first inspector of the NRW police force and takes up his post at the Ministry of the Interior in Düsseldorf. Bremer was born on October 9, 1895 in Solingen-Ohligs and took part in the First World War as a soldier from 1915 to 1918. In 1919, he was accepted into the police service as a lieutenant, promoted to captain of the protective police and finally removed from the service in 1933. In 1939, he was called up again as a soldier and took part in the war until the end. After the collapse, he initially belonged to the RB-Polizei in Düsseldorf until he was appointed to the Ministry of the Interior.
35. July 22. The "Association of Police Officers of North Rhine-Westphalia" is founded after the Allies allow the formation of professional associations for police officers. At this time, however, regular trade unions are still prohibited for police officers.
36. November 1. Herbert Kalicinski is appointed the first head of the Hiltrup Police Institute. During his term of office, he succeeds in persuading all federal states to provide uniform training for senior officers at the Police Institute.
37. Almost 26,000 traffic accidents occur in NRW in 1948, in which around 17,000 people are injured and 1,625 people are killed.

1949

38. Retirement: The special provision for police officers in the German Police Officers Act of 1937, which provides for earlier retirement than for other civil servants, is no longer valid, as the Act is repealed by the austerity ordinance of 19.3.49. Police officers can now only retire when they reach the age of 65.
39. January 29. Fatal accident on duty: Police constable Walter Hinz from the motorized platoon of the Düsseldorf RB police is killed in a traffic accident while on duty.
40. April 26. The "Carl Severing" State Police School (LPS) in Münster is opened by Minister President Karl Arnold.  In the presence of Interior Minister Dr. Menzel and the school's namesake, former Reich and State Minister Carl Severing, as well as numerous guests of honour, Arnold emphasizes that at the police school "police officers will not only receive professional but also civic training". This is a continuation of the police tradition of the Weimar Republic, whose creator was Carl Severing. Severing was "touched and ashamed at the same time" by this high degree of honor.
41. May 9. Parliament passes the "Act on the Provisional Organization of the Police". The law repeals a transitional decree issued by the Allies. The key points of the law are: The police authorities are completely newly created by the Allies in 1945. They are not legal successors to the "Himmler Police". The organs of the police authorities are the police committees. They are responsible for personnel and economic matters - albeit in agreement with the British Military Government - and are made up of representatives from the city and district administrations. The police committee elects a "Chief of Police" (note: the term "Chief of Police" does not yet exist at this time and is replaced by "Chief of Police"). The Chief of Police is responsible for the deployment of police forces, as well as the appointment, promotion or dismissal of police officers up to the rank of police or criminal master. The police committee is responsible for all higher ranks.  The police committees are not obliged to reinstate all former police officers. They decide who they wish to recruit. In the event of supra-local emergencies, the chief of the neighboring area is obliged to help. In the event of refusal or dispute, the Minister of the Interior must decide on assistance. The Minister of the Interior has the right to issue instructions to the police authorities.
42. thefts by "car jumpers" are causing increasing work for the police, as cases of this type of crime are becoming more frequent. The perpetrators jump from a moving vehicle onto a truck and - unnoticed by the driver - throw parts of the load onto the road in order to collect and dispose of them. In the first half of 1949, several car-jumping gangs were successfully arrested in Cologne for throwing clothing, car tires, steel goods and food from trucks on a large scale. The crimes mostly took place at night. The Cologne police were able to catch the perpetrators by using patrol cars with neutral license plates that had been deployed on the affected country roads.
43. After the Allies re-authorize boxing as a police sport, the police boxing championships are held in Düsseldorf at the beginning of April.
44. The Düsseldorf police chief constable Heinz Westerteicher wins the German athletics championships in Nuremberg and becomes German champion. Two police officers also finish second and third in this discipline.
45. The costs for the officers differ significantly in the individual police authorities. For example, the annual costs for the medical care of an officer in a government district authority (RB authority) average 36 marks, while a neighboring authority has to pay almost 43 marks. The cost of equipment and clothing for police officers varies between 266 marks and 400 marks.
46. On 24.5.49, the newly founded "Erich Klausener" police school on the Tannenstraße site in Düsseldorf is assigned the tasks of training and further training for the security and criminal investigation police.
47. The criminal investigation department is equipped with Belgian-made FN 7.65 millimeter pistols. The previously issued Smith & Wesson revolvers had proved to be unsuitable due to their size and weight. They could not be carried concealed due to their volume.

Figure 2: Essen police detectives working on the reconstruction of their bomb-damaged headquarters in 1945 (source: Herstell)

50s                           

Police work now increasingly takes place against the backdrop of a normalization of social and economic conditions. North Rhine-Westphalia - like the other areas under the control of the Western Allies - was experiencing an economic boom, from which police officers only benefited to a limited extent, however, as their pay was still low compared to many professions in the private sector. As a result, many young men look for jobs in mining or heavy industry rather than the "coat of honor" of the police. After the Allies initially refused to allow trade unions, the police union, which had emerged from the police officers' union, experienced a large increase in membership in the early 1950s. The most significant organizational change for the police was probably the transformation of the police forces, which were limited to municipalities and districts, into a state police force, which once again had central police facilities and police squads, after the Allies realized that a police force with very small organizational units could not effectively carry out law enforcement and avert danger. The sharp increase in motorized traffic in North Rhine-Westphalia plays a major role in police work. The material working conditions of the police are increasingly improving. Old police stations have been rebuilt, new ones have been built and numerous cars, motorcycles and special vehicles have been added to the police authorities' fleets. The training of young police officers still has a strong military character, so that the police officers' manners towards the population are repeatedly criticized against the background of a changed civil society.

1950   
                                           
48. 7,500 police officers protest in Düsseldorf against their inadequate pay. The officers arrive in the state capital in special trains, buses, trucks and police cars from all over North Rhine-Westphalia. The officers calculate to the Minister of the Interior, who is present, that a single constable receives a monthly salary of 172 marks up to the 4th year of service and that his salary only increases by 9 pfennigs in the 5th year of service.
49. visits to restaurants in uniform: The head of the SK police (district police) in Mülheim an der Ruhr issues an order prohibiting his officers from visiting restaurants in uniform. Officers in uniform are only allowed to visit pubs for official reasons, to eat meals or for joint events. The demand was met with indignation among Mülheim's civil servants. In a survey, two thirds of the officers speak out against the uniform ban.
50. Prisoners of war police officers. In a resolution, the Association of Police Officers protests against the claim spread by the media and senior Russian government officials that all prisoners of war have been released from Russian captivity. According to eyewitnesses, several hundred thousand prisoners of war were still in Russian hands. Among them were around 50,000 German police officers who had been captured simply because they belonged to the police force during the Nazi era. An appeal is made to those responsible: "Give us back our police officers who were prisoners of war and don't let them die of hunger in the vast steppes of Siberia".
51. April 1. In Mülheim, 37-year-old police sergeant Robert Reith is shot dead by members of the British stationing forces. Reith had come from a camaraderie party in a pub and had taken a seat on the back of a small truck with other police officers on his way home when he was shot by a soldier. The incident was preceded by an argument between the uniformed police officers and two soldiers who had also been in the pub. When one of the soldiers outside tried to prevent the truck from leaving, the vehicle pulled up. At that moment, the British man fired a shot in the direction of the vehicle, hitting Reith.
52. July 27. Following a decision by the Federal Cabinet, all civil servants' salaries throughout Germany are to be cut by 3% in order to provide funds for civil servants from the former eastern territories and former Wehrmacht civil servants who have lost their posts. The decision triggers a wave of indignation among civil servants and employee representatives.  The Association of Police Officers points out that "the salaries of police officers are barely enough to cover the most basic necessities of life" and that police officers have hardly any material assets.
53. August 1. Interior Minister Walter Menzel is replaced in office by Karl Arnold (CDU). Karl Arnold's term of office ends just six weeks later, on September 15, 1950, when he is succeeded by Adolf Flecken (CDU).  Born in 1901, Arnold first trained as a shoemaker and then as a workers' secretary. After Hitler's assassination attempt in 1944, he is arrested as a member of the resistance. In 1946, he became Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf and Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1947 to 1956. Between August and September, he also held the office of Minister of the Interior. Arnold dies in an accident on June 29, 1958. Born in 1889, Adolf Flecken completes a doctorate in 1913 after completing an apprenticeship as a businessman and studying law. After serving as a soldier in the First World War, a lawyer and a member of parliament for the Center Party (until 1933), he became a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament in 1949. Between 1950 and 1952, he was Minister of the Interior, then Minister of Finance for four years. Flecken dies on December 26, 1966.
54. Police officers without driving licenses: The "Association of Police Officers" criticizes the fact that a large number of police officers do not have driving licenses for motor vehicles. Although the officers are authorized to intervene in road traffic and regulate traffic, they themselves do not have the licenses required to drive a motor vehicle. Problems arise where police officers are unable to use vehicles at their disposal to pursue hit-and-run drivers and criminals because they are not allowed to drive a vehicle themselves, that they are unable to move the vehicles of drunken drivers when preventing them from driving under the influence of alcohol or, as non-drivers, are required to assess the driving skills of people who themselves have a driving license. The professional association argues that officers should be required to obtain driving licenses within the police force.
55. The Solingen police force receives a bonus of 10,000 marks from the state government because, according to this year's budget, it is the "cheapest police force" in the state. According to a decree from 1949, the Minister of the Interior can award such bonuses in agreement with the Minister of Finance. The measure is strongly criticized in the police force, as Solingen was only able to secure its low budget by having a particularly small number of police officers, which is at the expense of the safety of the population.
56. September 14. The Police Union (GdP) is founded after the Allies lift the ban on police officers joining trade unions. The GdP, which emerged from the union-like Association of Police Officers founded after the war, has over 90% of all police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia as members. Fritz Schulte becomes the first chairman of the NRW-GdP.
57. December 2. Fatal accident with personal involvement. There is a serious traffic accident involving a police motorcycle in Wickede. 57-year-old police sergeant August Richartz, Wickede police station, dies in the accident.


1951

58. January, 18. Police constable Werner Michalczik is shot dead in Gelsenkirchen. After he and his patrol colleague had checked two suspicious young men and taken one of them's ID, both were to be taken to the police station. One of the men suddenly pulled out a pistol, shot Michalczik in the head and took his ID card before fleeing. Only after he had shot the already dead officer again did he flee with his accomplice.
59. May. A police radio control center is set up in Düsseldorf. This radio control center can now be used to contact the radio control centers of eight other federal states as well as the control centers of the district police authorities.
60. February 17. The first new water police boat built after the war is launched in Cologne. After the officers of the "Rhine" water police section previously had to tackle the numerous criminals on the Rhine with a 2 hp cutter, the new, almost 16-metre-long boat is now equipped with a 175 hp engine and can travel at 20.5 km/h upstream and even 34 km/h downstream.
61. The right way to address citizens: The trade press is concerned about how police officers should correctly address citizens they do not know. In the June issue of the magazine "Die Polizei" it says: "How should a police officer address a strange lady or gentleman?" The existing instructions "Mein Herr" and "Meine Dame" have largely proved their worth. "Hello you" should be rejected. The salutations "Dear Madam", "Young Madam", "Mother" and "Little Mother", which are common among police officers, are also not to be approved of. On the other hand, the form of address "madam" is not appropriate in all police situations. When addressing women correctly, however, police officers sometimes have to listen to women saying that they are not "your lady".
62. April. Criminal investigation officers now receive a monthly clothing allowance of DM 13.30 as an equivalent to the uniform of the police.
63. The police in NRW are organized as follows in 1951: The Ministry of the Interior consists of five departments, of which Dept. IV is responsible for public safety (police department). The Ministry is responsible for police supervision in the state. It is subordinate to several district presidents, who in turn are assigned to the 25 district police authorities. In addition to the district police authorities, there are also two state police schools (Münster and Düsseldorf), the state criminal investigation department and the water police with the "Rhine" and "West German Canals" groups. There are also several state police facilities, namely the police telecommunications service, the riot police with four departments (BPA I Bork, BPA II Bochum, BPA III Wuppertal and BPA IV Linnich) and a police dog breeding and training center.
64. August 3 . A decision is taken to set up a riot police force. According to this, 2724 officers are to serve in hundreds in four departments (Wuppertal, Essen, Linnich and Bork). Each division of the riot police is to consist of four squads, each of which is to be divided into three platoons - and these in turn into three groups. The armament regulations stipulate that each division is to be equipped with 27 machine guns, 30 submachine guns, a water cannon as well as carbines and pistols. The divisions are also to be equipped with Volkswagens, all-terrain trucks and motorcycles.  On 1.10.51, the first 150 officers are to move into their department, the converted teachers' college in the town of Linnich.  The main tasks of the riot police are, on the one hand, the training and further training of officers as a replacement for the general law enforcement service and, on the other hand, constant operational readiness to reinforce the police law enforcement service in the event of major dangers.  The legal basis for the establishment of the police squads is the law on the riot police of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia from August 3, 1951. Approval for the establishment of closed units was granted on November 14, 1950 by the Allied High Commission, which thus moved away from its previous position that there should be no closed police units in Germany.
65. The transfer of police officers who had to flee from the German eastern territories that had fallen to Poland and Russia at the end of the war and had lost their jobs as a result is regulated. The "Law regulating the legal status of persons covered by Article 131 of the Basic Law" of 11.5.51 stipulates that, with a few exceptions, the civil servants now popularly known as "131ers" are to be reinstated in their new home country in an office that corresponds to their former position (reinstatement in the office held on January 31, 1933). Those who were particularly politically incriminated during the Nazi era are not to benefit from the regulation. However, a not inconsiderable number of former Gestapo officers from the former eastern territories have now also had to join the North Rhine-Westphalian police force. However, the pension costs for these officers are not borne by the federal states concerned, but by the federal government.  
66. Handover of the former Luftwaffe ammunition headquarters ("Muna") in Bork as police accommodation to the 1st hundred of the riot police on 26.11.51.
67. October: Police officers have to freeze. The Association of Police Officers writes to the Minister of the Interior asking him to ensure that the police stations have more fuel to heat their offices. It complains that there have been numerous cases of colds among police officers in the past because the stations and police stations have remained cold due to the lack of fuel.
68. From 1951, the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior procures FN 9 millimeter and FN 7.65 millimeter pistols for all police officers. By the turn of 1952/53, every police officer is finally equipped with their own firearm.  Prior to this, the criminal investigation department had already been equipped with Belgian weapons.

1952

69. move-in of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Hundreds in Bork. Relocation of the 13th task force from Düsseldorf to the newly built facility for a riot police force in Linnich.
70. State Secretary Dr. Wilhelm Rombach retires. He has been the permanent representative of the Minister of the Interior since 1948. Rombach dies more than 20 years after his retirement, on September 18, 1973.
71. In 1952, the rank designations of police officers in NRW are changed:


Old designation                                           New designation
    
Police inspector                                           Police commissioner
Senior police inspector                                Senior police commissioner
Chief Superintendent of Police                    Senior police councillor Police councillor
Detective Police Inspector                           Detective Superintendent
Detective Chief Inspector                            Detective Chief Superintendent
Chief Superintendent of Criminal Investigation
Senior Criminal Investigation Officer           Criminal Investigation Officer
 
72. May 11. At a protest rally of the communist youth organization "Free German Youth" (FDJ), attended by 30,000 people in Essen, a young participant is shot dead in front of the Gruga Hall by officers of a police task force after some young people start throwing stones at the officers.
73. May 25. The term of office of Interior Minister Adolf Flecken (CDU) ends. His office is taken over by Franz Meyers (CDU).  Meyers, born on July 31, 1908 in Mönchengladbach, is a doctor of law, comes from a family of police officers and works as a lawyer. He became Lord Mayor of Mönchengladbach in 1952 and was Minister of the Interior from 1952 to 1956. After a brief period as a member of the Bundestag, he held the office of NRW Minister President from 1958 to 1966. Meyers dies on January 27, 2002 at the age of 93 in his home town of Mönchengladbach.
74. June 20. The establishment of Riot Police Division III in Wuppertal is completed. The establishment began in September 1951.
75. July 23. The former Prussian Minister of the Interior Dr. h.c. Carl Severing dies at the age of 77. The State Police School in Münster was named after Severing in 1949, who had rendered outstanding services to the establishment of a democratic police force during the Weimar Republic.
76. The riot police department II (Bochum) is also completed. Its establishment had begun in January 1952.  The first head of the department is Hermann Bachor, who had previously served as deputy head of the Bottrop police.
77. November: By decree, the Minister of the Interior orders mandatory emergency signals to be given by police officers using the whistle.  In cases where police officers are physically attacked and cannot break the resistance with their own strength, when lawbreakers are fleeing or if assistance is needed at the scene of an accident or danger, the officers are to blow the emergency signal "Short, short, long". The response signal of officers who hear the signal and rush to help should be "three short".
78. October 21. The term of office of Ministerial Director Dr. Siegfried Middelhaufe ends. Middelhaufe had headed the police department in the Ministry of the Interior since November 1946.
79. Low salary despite sharp price increases. The profession of police officer is one of the lowest paid jobs. In 1952, a police chief constable earned between DM 210 and DM 280, depending on seniority. By way of comparison, a packet of coffee beans (500g) cost DM 16, 500g of butter DM 3.50, a loaf of rye bread DM 1.95, men's shoes DM 25 to DM 35, a bedroom DM 350 to DM 1,100, a comforter DM 34 to DM 100 and a bicycle between DM 40 and DM 85.
80. operations with brain injuries. During operations, the police repeatedly have to deal with people who have suffered brain injuries as a result of the war. Some of them appear in the public street scene in a staggering manner as apparently drunk people, others tend to act out due to their brain damage, so that the police are alerted. In its October 1952 issue of the magazine "Deutsche Polizei", the police union explains this problem and warns people to look for a "brain injury" stamp in their passports in suitable cases. Nationwide, 60,000 brain-injured people are registered, but it is assumed that there is a high number of unreported cases.
81. Protest against poor pay. The extremely poor income situation of police officers is not only being loudly and clearly denounced by trade unions. In many places, protest groups are also forming at the level of the district police authorities. For example, 68 officers from the 3rd police district of the Wuppertal police force, from police constable to police superintendent, published a resolution in which they demanded appropriate pay. The protest letter states, among other things: "We demand the financial appreciation of our service and refuse to continue to be comforted with empty promises". The officers point to the average hourly wage of DM 1.10 and go on to explain: "Just as every police officer can see their excitement when they receive the money, the representatives of the state should also feel a shameful blush on their faces to expect us to perform our duties for such a front wage, in which our health and possibly even our lives have to be risked."

1953

82. January 14. A voluntary school crossing guard service is introduced to support the police in keeping school routes safe. Just three years later, there will be 12,000 young helpers ensuring that schoolchildren can cross the road safely.  The school crossing patrols, who are trained by the police, will wear conspicuous protective vests and signal drivers to stop. The minimum age is 13.
83. The State Office of Criminal Investigation is renamed the "State Office of Criminal Investigation".  The office has just 97 employees in this financial year.
84. The speed limit of 40 km/h for motor vehicles within built-up areas is lifted. As a result, the number of people injured and killed in accidents rises rapidly.
85. The Road Traffic Act stipulates that the transportation of people on the loading areas of trucks is prohibited in future. In the past, such passenger transportation had led to numerous serious accidents.
86. Nationwide police crime statistics are introduced at the Federal Criminal Police Office. Among other things, all officially reported crimes and suspects are counted in these statistics. Until the end of 1952, there were no uniform crime statistics for West Germany. Two separate statistics were kept, one for the British occupation zone (North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) and one for the other federal states. As the statistics were kept according to very different criteria, they were not comparable and could not be combined. The first statistics for the whole of Germany show a total number of around 1,491,000 crimes for 1953.
87. October 1. Reorganization: North Rhine-Westphalia receives a new police organization law.  The police force of North Rhine-Westphalia loses its character as a municipal police force and is re-nationalized. With the reorganization of 1953, there are now three different types of police authorities: The district police authorities, the state police authorities (Regierungspräsidenten) and the state criminal investigation department. The district police authorities are now the "Oberkreisdirektor" in the rural districts, the "Leiter des Polizeiamtes" in the independent cities with up to 100,000 inhabitants, the "Polizeidirektoren" in the cities with 100,000 - 300,000 inhabitants and the "Polizeipräsidenten" in the cities with 300,000 and more inhabitants. After the end of the war, the police had initially been split up into small municipal units, which was reversed with the reorganization.
88. October 1. The two water police groups "Rhine" and "Canals" are merged into a separate district police authority, the North Rhine-Westphalia Water Police Directorate, under the new Police Organization Act. In 1953 alone, the waterway police are deployed in 400 shipwrecks.  

1954

89. May 25. The new salary law comes into force. A police chief constable (pay grade A3) now earns between DM 280 and DM 375 per month, depending on the length of service in the police force, a detective inspector (A6) between DM 440 and DM 625 and a police protection officer (A16) between DM 825 and DM 1325.
90. June 14. Police and clairvoyance: In a circular decree, the Ministry of the Interior regulates the inadmissibility of psychic means in police operations. The decree states: "Police measures that could have serious consequences for those affected may only be carried out using means that are objectively verifiable. It is therefore inadmissible to use psychic means to carry out such measures, in particular to investigate criminal acts, or to make use of such persons (clairvoyants, fortune tellers, etc.) who are allegedly in possession of psychic abilities".
91. June 15: The State Civil Servants Act (LBG) stipulates 48 hours as the weekly working time for police officers. Under certain conditions, this may be exceeded. With regard to taking up residence, the LBG stipulates that the superior may order a police officer to take up residence at a certain distance from the place of employment or to move into an official residence. Due to the particular stresses and strains of the job, police officers retire at the age of 60 (more precisely: on March 31 following their 60th birthday), which differs from the age limit for other civil servants.  Previously, police officers retired at the age of 65.
92. The salary development of police officers lags far behind the development of other professions. While the salaries of police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia increased by 40% between 1946 and 1954, the increases in the paper processing industry were 76%, in the chemical industry 100% and in the iron industry as much as 123%. The average increase for all industry groups in these years was 89%.
93. Hermann Bachor steps down as head of the Bochum riot police and becomes head of the "Carl Severing" state police school in Münster.
94. Former member of the state parliament Hans Kirchhoff, who has spent most of his professional life with the Ruhrknappschaft in Bochum, becomes the new director of the water police.
95. Fatal use of firearms: On an arterial road in Düsseldorf, the driver of a sports car disregards the stop signs of a police officer who is on the lookout for the so-called "highway robbers" who have been active in the state for some time. The officer shoots at the fleeing car with a submachine gun. The driver's wife is fatally shot. The driver had fled with the car because he had used it without the owner's knowledge.
96. The Federal Court of Justice rules that the use of lie detectors as evidence in criminal proceedings is unsuitable and inadmissible.  The collection of evidence using such a technical instrument turns the person under investigation into an object and violates human dignity.
97. December: New "murder van": Shortly before the turn of the year, the State Office of Criminal Investigation unveils a car trailer designed to serve as an emergency vehicle in homicide cases and disasters. The converted caravan, a rolling office, can be towed effortlessly even in difficult terrain and contains all the technical equipment of a stationary criminal investigation department, i.e. forensic equipment, a radio intercom system, a dictaphone, a typewriter and a table with four seats, a back seat with a further three seats and a separate seat for detainees who can be handcuffed to the seat. After a trial phase, the vehicle is to be used in all criminal investigation departments in the country.

1955

98. A new uniform is introduced. It has a civilian rather than a military character. The collar of the skirt is open, and a shirt and tie are worn. From 1955, except on special occasions or by the riot police, only a peaked cap may be worn as headgear, rather than a chaco.
99. Establishment of an equestrian squadron in Bonn.
100. duration of leave depends on the pay grade: The new vacation ordinance stipulates that civil servants in grades A3 - A4 (intermediate service) are entitled to 27 vacation days per year from the age of 40. From A5, there is an entitlement to 30 days, from A9 to 32 days and from A16 upwards to 36 days.
101. NRW's major cities are to be equipped with new types of police reporting devices (police emergency call pillars). In the event of danger, a small window is smashed to reveal an alarm button. Pressing the button triggers a bell in the police station. In addition, police officers can unlock the device and call for backup via a telephone inside. The previous police call points have not proved their worth. They were equipped with a telephone receiver that citizens could use to call the police. However, the handsets were removed too often and the device housings did not prove to be durable enough. The new reporting devices are initially installed in Bonn, Oberhausen and Dortmund.
102. The NRW police are equipped with tear gas pistols, which are designed to be effective at a distance of up to 150 meters.

1956

103. February 28. Hubert Biernat is appointed Minister of the Interior. He replaces his predecessor Franz Meyers.  Born on June 11, 1907 in Heeren (district of Unna), the trained businessman Biernat worked as an editor of a Social Democratic newspaper from 1928 and had to emigrate to Holland and Belgium during the Nazi era to avoid arrest. After the war, he first became head of the district agency of the Westfälische Rundschau, then district administrator in Unna in 1946, and in 1950 district president in Arnsberg until he accepted a call to the Düsseldorf ministry. Biernat dies on 30.10.67.
104. Trade union efforts to reduce the working week for civil servants bore fruit. In its deliberations on the Civil Service Law Framework Act, the Civil Service Law Committee of the German Bundestag decides to reduce the working week to 45 hours.  The change will be implemented in the Working Hours Ordinance in 1958.
105. April 1. Decentralization of salary payments: The salary offices, which were previously maintained on a decentralized basis at 45 police authorities and institutions, are abolished. They are now replaced by a "Central Pay Office for the Police", which uses an electronic data processing system to calculate the salaries of around 27,000 police officers and issues payment instructions.
106. The Police School for Technology in Essen now becomes an independent institution as the "State Police School for Technology and Traffic".  The school is given the task of training and further training the state's police officers in traffic, motor vehicles, telecommunications, medical services, weapons and equipment. In addition, the central telecommunications workshop and the recruitment and selection office for young police officers are placed under the school's control.
107. Foundation of the International Police Association (IPA) in September 1956.
108. On September 1, Prime Minister Steinhoff opens the International Police Exhibition (IPA) in Essen, in Exhibition Hall 4 of the Gruga. In addition to the police forces of all German states, 18 foreign countries, the Red Cross, the Federal Criminal Police Office, customs and the security industry are also taking part. The exhibitors present their work on 60,000 square meters. The exhibition, which lasts several days, attracts 374,000 visitors.  
109. September 18. The Ministry of the Interior issues a so-called "drunk driving decree", in which police officers are expressly prohibited from driving motor vehicles under the influence of alcohol. The decree is renewed in 1957 and 1958 due to the large number of incidents in which police officers were caught drunk behind the wheel.
110. At the International Police Exhibition, a novelty is also introduced to protect police officers from being shot: A bulletproof vest. The nine-kilogram vest is already being used by the American police. The vest, which is to be worn under the uniform, protects the most important organs from the collarbone to the genital area. The sides of the body are also armored. The vest can also be supplied with head protection with a viewing slit on request.
111. The Essen police officer Wilhelm Montag takes part in the Olympic Games in Melbourne in the coxless four.
112: The police receive six police cars equipped with telephones. The new equipment is to be used to track down vehicles that make a lot of noise on the roads.
October 113. Reduction in personnel: Interior Minister Biernat announces at the Lawyers' Conference in Bad Oeynhausen that the number of police officers in NRW is to be reduced despite the increase in the population.
114. For the health care of police officers, the Minister of the Interior contracts three police health resorts in Bad Oeynhausen. These are the Oeynhausen state spa, the "Villa Berta" spa guesthouse and the "Heldreich" guesthouse. The cost of the cures is DM 9 per officer per day. The medical costs for a four-week cure amounted to DM 22 for the entire stay. Other health resorts, which are contracted by the Minister of the Interior, are in Bad Neuenahr, Bad Ems and Bad Aachen.
115. The state highway trains "Rhineland" and "Westphalia" are set up. The highway police officers stand out with their service vehicles - Porsche 356 Cabriolet - and their white uniforms with white helmets. The officers' rapid response vehicles are equipped with VHF radios so that they can establish contact with all police stations in the state.  The new unit is also known as the "overtaking police", as they can easily overtake and stop other road users with their fast vehicles.
116. The new police headquarters in Cologne is completed after two years of construction and is occupied by the end of the year. The building on Waidmarkt has 13 floors above ground as well as two underground floors converted into a bunker and a large side wing.
117. Police Superintendent Friedrich Quentin is appointed Inspector of the North Rhine-Westphalian police force. Born in Dortmund, he was most recently deputy head of the Hiltrup Police Institute. He succeeds Inspector Karl Bremer, who retires on reaching the age limit.
118. Introduction of exterior mirrors on motor vehicles: It is now mandatory for vehicle owners to have a mirror on the outside of a motor vehicle. This is intended to make overtaking safer. Previously, only interior mirrors had to be installed in motor vehicles.

1957

119. January. Test run for future police aviation. At the Düsseldorf Lohausen airfield, the Ministry of the Interior is currently testing a new type of foreign aircraft for use by the police. It is found that the aircraft has a greater radius of action than helicopters. Radio contact is established from the four-seater aircraft with the police authorities in various cities in the Düsseldorf region.
120. Ski Police. Officers from the police stations in the high-altitude areas of the districts of Düren, Monschau and Schleiden are equipped with skis and ski clothing for their duties. The police officers are trained in skiing at the Bavarian police school in order to be able to provide police assistance to the inhabitants of trapped villages in the event of extreme snowfall.
121. March 1. License plate requirement for mopeds. With immediate effect, moped owners must equip their vehicles with a small license plate issued by the insurance company. Until now, a license plate was not required for driving mopeds.
122. The national police gymnastics team is founded. In the following decades, it will perform countless shows both inside and outside the police force and impress not only with its acrobatics, but also with comic interludes as a clown group.
123. The "Erich Klausener" state police school is moved from its Düsseldorf location to Selm.
124. July 16. The road traffic regulations now allow police officers to charge up to five marks for traffic offenses, instead of the previous maximum of two marks as a chargeable warning. To this end, the officers are issued with different colored warning fine blocks for 1, 2 and 5 marks.
125. July 17. The first major documentary film about the German police is shown at the Haus der Technik in Essen. The 50-minute film shows the International Police Exhibition that had been held in Essen the previous year. On the other hand, a wide variety of police activities are shown, from patrol duty and water police to the deployment of the mountain police in the Bavarian glaciers. No actors were filmed but police officers at work. The film ends with an evening foot patrol and the words of the commentator: "He is one of thousands who are on duty in the cities and in the countryside. His name probably never appears in the newspapers. He has never seen any crime novels. He is the smallest cog in the wheel of the large police apparatus - the outermost outpost in the fight of good against evil - and all the cogs turn in a precisely predictable rhythm".
126. September 1: Binding speed limits for motor vehicles are laid down in the road traffic regulations. The speed limit is 50 km/h within built-up areas, 80 km/h on federal highways and 80 km/h on other roads, or 60 km/h for certain vehicles.
127. The assignment of pay grades to job titles is changed in 1957. A distinction is made between constable grades (A3 - A5) and senior civil servants (A6 - A17 and B2) within the so-called single career path, in which every civil servant is in principle eligible for every office.
A3 Police constable / senior constable
A4 Police chief constable / criminal assistant
A5 Police master/chief constable/criminal secretary/chief secretary
A6 Police inspector / detective inspector
A7 n. assigned
A8 Police Superintendent / Detective Superintendent
A9 n. assigned
A10 n. assigned
A 11 Police Chief Superintendent / Detective Chief Superintendent
A 12 n. assigned
A 13 n. assigned
A 14 Police Councillor / Criminal Councillor
A 15 Senior Police Councillor / Senior Criminal Councillor / Director of the State Office of Criminal Investigation
A 16 Protection Police Director
A 17 Police Director of the Hiltrup Police Institute / at the Ministry of the Interior / Criminal Director at the Ministry of the Interior
B 1 n. assigned
B 2 Police Inspector at the Ministry of the Interior

128. transfer to the criminal investigation department: A new career regulation for police officers stipulates that in future, police officers wishing to transfer to the criminal investigation department must pass a criminal investigation examination. It is no longer possible to transfer to the criminal investigation department without this examination.
129. "Motorized patrol service" is introduced in NRW after the Minister of the Interior signed a decree to this effect in 1955. The motto is "Fast police, good police!" The previous centralized radio patrol service in the authorities is now replaced by decentralized equipment of the individual police stations with radio patrol cars. In addition, all individual stations are to be equipped with two-wheelers. The police stations will mainly receive Mercedes, Opel Kapitän and Volkswagen vehicles with radio equipment. However, the motorized radio patrol service will not only drive through the police station, but one or all of the officers on board will get out and patrol the area around the vehicle. The vehicles should drive around 240 km per day, i.e. 80 km per shift. Assuming a driving speed of 25 - 30 km/h, the vehicles will be driven for just under 3 hours. Four hours will be spent on foot patrols and one hour on breaks. The acquisition costs per vehicle, including radio equipment, are around 10,000 marks and the annual operating costs are around 5,000 marks.  
130. In NRW, heavy motorcycles with radios and streamlined fairings are to be used throughout the state to increase police mobility. The machines reach a top speed of 160 km/h.  In addition, an increasing number of four-door patrol cars are to be procured, as experience to date speaks against the use of two-door vehicles.
131. The new Federal Salary Act , which also applies to police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia, comes into force. The following basic salaries are then paid. The local allowances that are added amount to between DM 55 (A3 single) and DM 310 (A 16, married, 4 children):
Salary group      Starting salary in DM      Final salary in DM     Seniority steps    Seniority allowance in DM
A3                      270                                 380                            12                        10
A4                      280                                 390                            12                        10
A5                      300                                 420                            13                        10
A6                      317                                 485                            13                        14
A8                      383                                 635                            13                        21
A 11                   593                                 965                            13                        31
A14                    807                              1.335                            13                        44
A15                    914                              1.490                            13                        48
A16                 1.051                              1.735                            13                        57

132. October 1: The waterway police are reorganized. The Cologne and Duisburg sections are merged to form the "Rhine" section based in Duisburg. The Recklinghausen and Münster sections are merged to form the "West German Canals" section. This section is now based in Münster.

1958

133. Josef Dufhues (CDU) becomes Interior Minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, succeeding Hubert Biernat.  Born in 1908, Dufhues works as a lawyer after studying law. He was a member of the state parliament from 1950 and Minister of the Interior from 1958 to 1962. In 1966, he became President of the state parliament. Dufhues dies on March 26, 1971 as a result of a tropical viral infection that he had suffered shortly before during a business trip to Africa.
134. March 19. The second-hand goods ordinance for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia comes into force. It obliges second-hand goods dealers to keep records of the goods they sell and to allow the police to carry out inspections on an ad hoc basis. In the police authorities, selected officers visit the second-hand goods stores and compare their stock with items advertised for search in the state and federal crime bulletins.
135. The career ordinance is amended so that the pay grades change. In future, a distinction will no longer be made within the police force between constable grades and senior officers, but between middle, senior and higher grades. There will no longer be pay grades A3 - A4 in the police force. The middle grade starts at A5, the senior grade at A9 and the higher grade at A13. Pay grade A17 is abolished.
136. No cancer risk from diesel: The question posed by many police officers who work in traffic control or traffic monitoring as to whether diesel fumes are potentially carcinogenic has been answered by a study conducted by the Federal Ministry of Transport with the support of German car manufacturers. No increased risk from inhaled diesel residues was found. Nevertheless, the investigations are to be continued.
137. June 23. Several men go on a rampage in a stolen car in Bonn and the surrounding area in the evening hours. Between 10.40 p.m. and 11.55 p.m. they shoot with pistols and rifles through various apartment windows, at passers-by and oncoming vehicles and also smash several windows of houses. The rampage claimed the lives of two men.
138. Obviously, the police have a problem with courtesy towards citizens. In a circular on "forms of correspondence with the public", the Minister of the Interior warns that "a polite tone in dealings with the authorities is one of the most natural basic rules of a democratic state that wants to serve and help its citizens".   In a letter to all authorities dated 9.10.63, the Minister of the Interior again demanded compliance with the decree in 1963 due to violations.

1959

139. January 1. The previous principle of free medical care, that police officers may only consult a police doctor or a police contract doctor, has been abandoned. According to the new regulations of the Free Medical Care, police officers now have a free choice of doctor. The police union had campaigned for this and complained that sick police officers had previously been "under a kind of trust medical supervision".
140. Dr. Oskar Wenzky becomes head of the new State Office of Criminal Investigation. He succeeds Friedrich D'heil, who left in October 1958.  Born in 1911, Wensky works at the Higher Regional Court in Breslau after studying law. He joins the police in 1936.
141. More police officers on the streets. Interior Minister Dufhues wants to put more police officers on the streets. To this end, 1,400 officers who were previously on indoor duty are to be transferred to outdoor duty. In addition, the existing police districts are to be merged into police protection areas, each with 70,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. The protection areas are to be assigned their own patrol cars.
142. The Düsseldorf criminal investigation department registers 1,444 men and women for vagrancy within a year. As 388 of them have not found accommodation within a set period, they are sent to summary court. Almost all of them are convicted, six men and five women are also sent to a workhouse.
143. October 24. Death on duty by a blow from a fist. In the evening hours of October 24, 59-year-old police officer Johann Niedballa is killed during an operation in Bochum. After a group of rowdy youths first caused damage to a kiosk and then harassed a bridal couple in the street, a brawl broke out and the police were called. Niedballa was one of the first police officers to arrive. He was brutally knocked down by a punch from the 19-year-old ringleader of the youth group and died of his injuries on the way to hospital. The suspect was arrested shortly afterwards. Niedballa, who would have retired just a few months after the fatal attack, was carried to his grave by more than 1,000 police officers.  
144. December 12. A special commission is set up at the State Office of Criminal Investigation to investigate violent National Socialist crimes. As of 1962, the commission has received 1,800 cases for investigation, 11 of which have been brought to a provisional conclusion at this time. The commission employs 30 civil servants.

Figure 3: Vehicle inspection by the Essen police in the early 1950s (source: Essen police)

60s                                          

Once again, it is the sharp increase in road traffic that poses major problems for the police and calls for a lot of manpower and new ideas to increase road safety. In society, which is now largely freed from the material worries of the post-war period, the need for freedom from state paternalism is growing. The slogan "Under the gowns, the mustiness of a thousand years" is making the rounds, especially among the younger section of the population. Towards the end of the 1960s, the number of large demonstrations against state interference in private life and calling for more liberality increased sharply. The police now had to deal to a greater extent with the fact that such protests were no longer always peaceful, but sometimes degenerated into violence. The number of police deployments and the use of batons and water cannons is increasing. One outstanding case in the fight against crime is the investigation into the serial child murderer Jürgen Bartsch, whose actions shocked more than just the population of North Rhine-Westphalia. Towards the end of the decade, the number of police officers breaks through the 32,000 mark and yet, as will soon become apparent, is no longer sufficient to meet the new challenges awaiting the police in the 1970s.

1960

145. trial speed limit: A speed limit is introduced for four days over Whitsun: 100 km/h on freeways, 80 km/h on main roads. The traffic accident statistics for these four days are clear. There are 15% fewer road deaths than in the same period last year, despite the fact that traffic density has increased by 25% during this year.
146. August 1. In future, tires on motor vehicles and trailers must have tread grooves or notches across their entire width. The tread depth must be at least 1 mm at all points of the tire.
147 Detective Inspector Fänger from the Düsseldorf police force is the most successful German police fencer. He took part in the 1960 Olympic Games, competed in the World Championships and was a member of the German national team 27 times.
148. NRW police Olympic participant: Manfred Kinder, the North Rhine-Westphalian police champion, also takes part in the Olympic Games in Rome. He and his team win the silver medal in the 4x400m relay and fifth place in the 400m race.
149. October 7. A major fire breaks out on the Rhine near Emmerich after the ocean-going ferry "Tina Scarlett" collides with a tanker carrying 700 tons of kerosene on its way to Rotterdam. The kerosene, which spreads burning on the Rhine, sets fire to nine other ships. Together with the fire department, the Emmerich water police try to reach the trapped passengers on the ferry. Two people eventually die in the flames and 24 others are injured. The water police receive reinforcements from Duisburg at a very late stage.
150. The ADAC suggests introducing so-called parking disks, based on the model of the French capital Paris, which can be placed in cars for free parking. They are intended to ensure that drivers can park free of charge for a limited period of time and that the police are also able to determine when the car has been parked. There are calls for a move away from the "penny tomb" parking meters, which place an unnecessary financial burden on drivers.
151. From August 1, drivers are responsible for displaying inspection stickers on the rear license plates of their vehicles to prove that they have presented their vehicle to an inspection station.
December 152: The first ten applicants to work as helicopter pilots in the planned police helicopter squadron undergo a selection process at the State Police School in Essen. Five of them are selected for further tests, which they have to complete at the Federal Border Police helicopter flight readiness unit.
153. Essen police officer Mathias Schießleder becomes European judo champion.
154. school-leaving qualifications of the new recruits: Of the 1101 men recruited to the police force, 79% have a primary school leaving certificate, 19.6% have an intermediate school leaving certificate and 1.4% have a high school diploma or vocational baccalaureate.

1961

155. February 1. All police headquarters and police directorates must set up a department for youth protection and juvenile delinquency issues with immediate effect on the basis of a circular issued by the Minister of the Interior. In organizational terms, the department will be merged with the Female Criminal Investigation Department (WKP) under the name "WKP and Youth Protection". A corresponding unit will also be set up at the State Office of Criminal Investigation.
156. police emergency call systems are to be operated jointly by the police and fire department in future. The labeling of the police call systems is to be changed to "Police + Fire".
157 The first police telex dialing center goes into operation in Bielefeld. In future, the police stations connected to this center will be able to contact each other by telex without the need for manual communication. This means that the departments can communicate with each other directly by telex. Initially, 100 district police authorities and police stations in the administrative district of Detmold are to be connected to the control center. There will also be a connection to the control center in Düsseldorf.
158. August 5. Police officer shot dead. During an identity check in a wooded area near Neuss-Grimmlinghausen, the person being checked shoots at the intervening police officers without warning. The 26-year-old police sergeant Friedhelm Noeldechen is fatally injured.
159 In 1961, over 3,000 requests for investigations are sent to the State Office of Criminal Investigation from all over NRW. The requests relate to the examination of chemicals, blood, suspected forged documents, handwriting and other evidence to be examined by the authority's experts.
160 Police officers who died in the line of duty: Between May 8, 1945 and December 31, 1961, 230 police officers were killed by lawbreakers or died in accidents in North Rhine-Westphalia. As the North Rhine-Westphalian police force is affected by this problem to an above-average extent compared to the rest of Germany, safety drills are to be carried out for all officers from 1962.

1962

March 161, 17. Herbert Kalicinski, Director of the Hiltrup Police Institute, dies a few months before retiring. Born in Königshütte in Silesia in 1897, he had joined the Prussian police in 1922, but was removed from office by the National Socialists in 1937. After being appointed head of the police school in Homburg, Hesse, at the end of the war, he was appointed the first head of the Hiltrup Police Institute in 1948.  Kalicinski is succeeded by Walter Schorn, who most recently worked as a traffic officer in the Ministry of the Interior.
April 162. The Ministry of the Interior publishes the first copy of the magazine "Die Streife". On 20 pages, the reader learns about ten years of riot police, the reorganization of the police and the motorization of the police in NRW.
163. April 13. As part of an international police cooperation program, police councillor Rudolf Klotz, formerly of the "Carl Severing" state police school, is sent to Kabul to train Afghan police officers. He will head the police school there for five years.
164 May 27. The Act on the Exercise and Limits of Direct Coercion (UZwG NW.) comes into force. It regulates the use of coercive means by the police and provides, among other things, for the use of hand grenades by police officers against persons who have used firearms or explosives and where the use of firearms by the police has been unsuccessful.
165 July 26. The term of office of Interior Minister Josef Hermann Dufhues ends.  He is succeeded by Willy Weyer (FDP).  Weyer, born in 1917, becomes deputy mayor of Hagen in 1948 after studying law, then a member of the state parliament in 1950. In 1954 he became Minister of Economics, in 1956 Minister of Construction and in 1962 Minister of the Interior of NRW. In 1975, he left the state government and the state parliament. From 1974 to 1986, he was President of the German Sports Federation, and from 1958 until his death on August 15, 1987, he was President of the NRW State Sports Federation.
166. August 1. The police helicopter squadron begins operations with two Augusta Bell 47 J aircraft. Initially based at the accommodation area of the riot police division III in Wuppertal, Obere Lichtenplatzer Straße, until September 1, 1983. Two garages served as hangars for the aircraft. Organizationally, the squadron is initially subordinate to the state motorway train of the Düsseldorf Regional Council. Just ten months after entering service, the squadron can look back on 226 missions with more than 600 flying hours. The majority of the missions are traffic surveillance missions.  To date, North Rhine-Westphalia is the only German state to deploy helicopters with the police.  The individual price of the two helicopters purchased, which operate under the radio call names "Hummel I" and "Hummel II", is DM 300,000.
167. September 4 - 7. French President Charles de Gaulle comes to North Rhine-Westphalia on a state visit. The police deploy 2,000 police officers and 500 detectives to protect the state guest. De Gaulle is escorted by 17 police motorcyclists ("white mice") on all his journeys, as required by protocol.
168) The head of the State Police School for Technology and Traffic in Essen, Police Senior Councillor Heinz Staeck, retires.
169 The Ministry of the Interior appoints Dr. Jakob Jülicher as the new Director of the Water Police. Born in Aachen in 1921, the legal and political scientist had worked in the police department of the Ministry of the Interior and as head of the Neuß police office.  He takes over from Hans Kirchhoff, who becomes the new Chief of Police in Essen.
170 The police in NRW have 33 camera vehicles with which speed measurements are carried out.  
171 Recruitment: Around 4,900 young men apply to join the police in 1962. Around 4,200 appear for the examination and 1,800 are found to be fit for police service. In the end, 1,120 applicants were recruited. Many of the rejected applicants had heart or circulatory problems, 10% were color-blind. A survey of 550 police candidates on the question of how they came to choose their career revealed the following results: 190 were recruited through a personal conversation with a police officer, 113 through the newspaper, 104 through observations relating to the police service, 48 through their father, who is in the police force himself, 15 through friends, 15 through a police sports show and one through a crime film. Before joining, the majority of applicants had worked in a skilled trade, 45% were secondary school pupils.

1963

172. January 1. Partial withdrawal from the recording of minor accidents: According to Interior Minister Weyer, the North Rhine-Westphalian police will only record traffic accidents with minor damage to a very limited extent. In future, extensive final reports and hand sketches will no longer be required, even for the most minor damage. Only a small amount of data will be recorded at the scene of the accident. Weyer: "It must be pointed out that it is not the job of the police to create documents for possible private legal disputes between the parties involved."
April 173. With the "WSP 11", the North Rhine-Westphalian water police now have the first police speedboat in Germany. The boat, which can reach a speed of 55 km/h and even up to 60 km/h when traveling downhill, is to be used to monitor recreational boat traffic, among other things. The "WSP 11" is only 7 m long and 2.10 m wide.
July 174. The Essen police have to keep watch over the largest competition event in the world. In addition to 30,000 active gymnasts and 3,000 judges, countless spectators flock to the "German Gymnastics Festival 1963". Federal President Heinrich Lübke gives the closing speech at the major event, which is also attended by numerous gymnasts from the North Rhine-Westphalian police force.
July 175. The American President John F. Kennedy visits the Federal Republic of Germany. The visit requires a huge police presence to protect the state guest. During his stay, Kennedy visits the cities of Bonn, Cologne and Bad Godesberg.  Just four months later, Kennedy is killed by a sniper in Dallas, Texas.
176. September 1. The police helicopter squadron moves from Wuppertal to Düsseldorf-Lohausen Airport.
177 Foreigner problems. The dramatic increase in the influx of foreigners to North Rhine-Westphalia forces the police to take action. For example, the police train Turkish, Spanish, Italian and Greek immigrant workers with bicycles, go-carts and pedal cars in youth traffic schools to teach them the German traffic rules. In its magazine "Die Streife", the Ministry of the Interior comes to the following conclusion: "The foreign young men, some of whom come from areas where motor vehicle traffic is often still virtually unknown, burden the police with additional problems due to their behavior. The increase in foreign criminality is also being countered. After the proportion of foreign suspects in the total number of suspects had already reached 2.8% in 1963, a "foreigner observation unit" was set up at the identification service in Duisburg, for example. Foreign crime suspects are summarized in a file. The police also work closely with the immigration authorities.
178. September 24. The former Minister of the Interior Walter Menzel, who held office from 1946 to 1950, dies.
179: Interior Minister Weyer suggests that a minimum speed limit of 60 km/h should be introduced on freeways for a transitional period, later rising to 80 km/h. At present, there is no such minimum speed on freeways. Slow-moving small car drivers and overloaded trucks cause a large number of traffic accidents every year, as they provoke dangerous overtaking maneuvers by other drivers.
180. In 1963, DM 157,000 is spent on the purchase of modern forensic equipment for the state's 13 forensic investigation centers (KTU). The KTU are located at larger district police authorities.
181 The waterway police now have 13 stations and 6 posts - including 5 multi-person posts - on the Rhine and along the canals in NRW. Each station and each post has at least one patrol boat, the Duisburg station even has 4, Cologne 3 and Emmerich 2 boats. In addition, each station has at least one motor vehicle at its disposal. Performance in 1963: The waterway police alone are called out to 1,096 accidents and have to deal with an international fleet of 6,800 ships on the Rhine.
182: The state provides 950,000 DM for the construction of so-called "individual police stations". These are police stations in rural areas. For the police service in rural areas, houses are to be built for police officers and their families, which also have an office where the officer can carry out his duties. The individual police stations also include a stable for keeping small animals and a garage. A total of 250 such police stations are required. The first ten are to be built in 1963 in Elmpt, Bad Sassendorf, Niederndorf, Westerwiehe, Niedermehnen, Witzhelden, Friesheim, Steinenbrück, Ottenstein and Sprakel.
183 Due to the large number of complaints received from citizens against police officers, Interior Minister Weyer has had a "code of etiquette" developed for police officers. The first "red rag" in dealing with citizens is the question: "Do you know why I am stopping you?". Weyer points out that citizens have a right to not be "treated in a schoolmasterly manner" by police officers. The ministerial code of conduct also demands, among other things, that officers should not immediately threaten to press charges for coercion if a citizen announces a complaint to the head of the authority or a deputy. Officers should also introduce themselves by name. However, the Minister of the Interior points out that officers will still not have to be harassed by troublemakers and hooligans in the future
184. October 1. Westdeutscher Rundfunk agrees to broadcast traffic warning messages from the police on its VHF program every two hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. with immediate effect. Particularly important and urgent messages will even be inserted directly into the current broadcast, if the program schedule permits.
185th State Director of Criminal Investigation Fritz Weber retires. Born in Bergneustadt in 1903, Weber studied political science and law in Giessen, Munich and Frankfurt and joined the police force as a detective inspector in 1926. He made a name for himself in the 1930s as head of the "Ruhrgebiet" central homicide squad by solving several difficult murder cases and moved to the Ministry of the Interior in 1954.
186. In 1963, the North Rhine-Westphalian criminal investigation department had 433 cars, almost one in three of which was equipped with radios. In addition, 18 agencies had special forensic vehicles (KSK), commonly known as "murder vans".  These KSKs, which are not only used for murders but also at other complex crime scenes, are VW buses whose interior serves as a rolling interrogation room, a criminal police command vehicle and a scaffolding vehicle for crime scenes. In addition to radio equipment, the vehicle is equipped with headlights with tripod, a doctor's case, utensils for the "corpse toilet", a large set of photographic equipment, including number plates for marking traces, cases with small tools, large tools such as shovels, spades, pickaxes and hatchets, barrier materials, cleaning and packaging materials, a typewriter and a tape recorder as well as a 50-liter water tank and a large awning on the roof. An additional battery also makes the forensic technicians independent of external power sources.
187 Violence against police officers. In 1963, police officers were resisted in almost 1,000 cases in the administrative district of Düsseldorf alone. 388 officers were injured in the process. In 151 cases, batons were used to break the resistance; firearms were only used in 22 cases.

1964

188 At the beginning of 1964, 95% of all police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia belonged to the middle ranks.
189 Dr. Oskar Wenzky is replaced as head of the State Office of Criminal Investigation by Günter Grasner.  Grasner, born in 1904, has worked for the police in Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and finally in NRW since 1929. Wenzky takes over the office of State Director of Criminal Investigation.
190 The helicopter squadron's two Augusta Bell 47 J helicopters prove to be underpowered for certain flight maneuvers and are therefore replaced by two Alouette II Astazou turbine helicopters. The decommissioned Bell helicopters will be taken over by the Hamburg police. Two more Alouette helicopters are to be delivered in the course of the year.  Within ten months, the helicopter squadron has flown 171 missions with 470 flight hours with two machines. The most important missions included several cases in which seriously injured people were flown out of inaccessible areas or transported from accident sites and taken to hospitals, as well as aerial surveillance during state visits by the American and French presidents.
191 The working week for police officers is reduced to 44 hours.
192 North Rhine-Westphalia is still the only federal state with its own highway police. The highway police have been considerably expanded since their establishment. It now has 13 police highway stations, each with 2 - 4 Porsche cars, 4 - 6 station wagons, civilian patrol vehicles and 6 - 10 motorcycles.  The highway police officers are trained in English in 1964 so that they can also communicate with foreign drivers.
193 Foreign assistance. 20 Afghan police officers and a lieutenant from the Argentinian police are trained in a special course at the state police school in Münster.
194. nail belts for the forced termination of journeys. The police test so-called nail belts to prevent drivers from continuing their journey. The belts, which are rolled out on the road in front of approaching vehicles, prove to be unsuitable for preventing vehicles from continuing their journey. During the test, the spikes of the nail belt get stuck in the tires, but the holes in the tires largely close again, so that the tire air escapes only slowly and the drivers do not immediately lose control of their vehicles.
195th Olympic participant of the NRW police. Three police officers from NRW are among the Olympic athletes at the Tokyo Games. Manfred Knickenberg is competing in the 100 m run, Mathias Schießleder in judo. However, both athletes will be eliminated in Tokyo in the preliminary rounds.  The third member of the team, Ernst Streng, wins the gold medal in cycling (four-man team pursuit) and thus becomes the first Olympic winner for the North Rhine-Westphalian police.
196. personnel shortage. In September, there are 1,268 unfilled positions in the NRW police force. The police-to-population ratio has deteriorated drastically since 1954. Back then, one police officer was responsible for 600 residents, but now officers have to look after 702 citizens. In order to achieve the target ratio of 1:600 again, over 5,000 new police officers would have to be recruited. The abolition of more than 1,000 posts between 1954 and 1958, which were to be replaced by technical innovations, is now described by the Minister of the Interior as a mistake.
197 The Career Ordinance is temporarily amended to remedy the personnel problems. Until the end of 1969, it is now possible to recruit older applicants up to the age of 36 into the police force due to a lack of younger applicants. The older applicants recruited on this basis were subsequently given the nickname "Weyerlinge", a reference to the initiator of the new regulation, Interior Minister Weyer.  Weyer also considered hiring auxiliary police officers who would only be responsible for monitoring stationary traffic, as well as volunteer police assistants who would make themselves available to carry out police duties in their free time.
198 Following a trial period in several authorities, individual patrols are to be increasingly deployed during low-traffic periods and in quiet areas. This is intended to increase visible patrol activity on North Rhine-Westphalia's roads despite the existing staff shortage.  Single patrols will only be deployed during the day and only experienced officers will be deployed. The officers freed up by the deployment of single patrols with radio vehicles are to be deployed on foot patrols. This is stipulated in a decree issued by the Minister of the Interior.

1965

January 199. With the introduction of a statutory driving ban, an instrument is created to give drivers who commit serious traffic offenses a kind of warning that their driving license could be revoked. A driving ban prohibits a driver from driving a vehicle for a limited period of time.
200th Establishment of a branch of the "Erich Klausener" state police school in Bergkamen-Oberaden for 150 course participants.
201 Boxing training. Boxing training, which was part of the police training curriculum until about ten years ago and then fell into disrepute and was abolished, is now to be reintroduced into police training. In two courses in Hachen, the first riot police instructors are trained as boxing instructors for "fencing with fists".
202. duty to instruct suspects. From the beginning of the year, the police have a special duty to instruct suspects under the reformed Code of Criminal Procedure. Persons who are suspected of a crime and are to be questioned must now be informed before questioning that they do not have to provide any information about the case and that they have the right to consult a criminal defense lawyer before making a statement. The latter aspect is highly controversial, not only in police circles but also in the Federal Council. Many fear that the reference to a lawyer will now disrupt and seriously jeopardize police investigations.
203 The NRW police force has 28,900 posts for police officers.
204 In order to make the work of officers on lone patrol easier, patrol cars are now being converted into one-man radio patrol cars. On the one hand, the vehicles are fitted with a rear light that displays the words "Please follow" in flashing letters so that drivers no longer have to be stopped with the stop stick. Secondly, a switch will be fitted to the steering wheel to activate the radio transmitter. The driver now only has to speak in the direction of the handset to make radio announcements. Previously, the passenger had to pick up the handset and press a button on the handset to speak.
205 A 51-year-old police officer from Hamburg steals DM 118,000 during a bank robbery in Bad Oeynhausen. He is overpowered by staff during a later bank robbery in Delmenhorst. As he can be proven to have committed a larger series of crimes, he is sentenced to 12 years in prison.
206. doctor's accident kit in patrol cars. 750 police patrol cars have been equipped with doctors' accident kits, which are to be made available to doctors at the scene of accidents for the initial treatment of injured persons.
207 The new State Office for Remuneration and Pensions is responsible for paying the salaries of police officers in future. After the police authorities had maintained their own payment offices until 1956 and then a central salary and pension office was set up in the Ministry of the Interior, the new state office now takes over, although it is not only responsible for police officers, but also for all other state employees.
208. April 1. Walter Baak is appointed the new inspector of the North Rhine-Westphalian police. Born in Switzerland in 1908, Baak joined the police in 1928 and made it to the rank of major in the Schutzpolizei during the Third Reich. After the war, he was appointed deputy head of the water police in Hamburg in 1945. His subsequent positions included that of head of the police in Düsseldorf, Essen and Bonn and positions in the Ministry of the Interior.  Baak succeeds Friedrich Quentin, who has reached retirement age.
209 May 18 - 28. The Queen's visit to Germany brings with it one of the largest police operations in North Rhine-Westphalia's history. In NRW, the Queen is staying at Augustusburg Castle in Brühl, among other places. The Queen, who walked with President Heinrich Lübke through the honorary formation of the German Armed Forces on her arrival, will stay in North Rhine-Westphalia for three days.  In addition to the federal capital Bonn, other stops in NRW include Düsseldorf and Duisburg.
210. June 10. Due to the personnel shortage in the police force, the Minister of the Interior decrees that all police officers who have recruited a prospective employee as part of an individual recruitment drive and who is subsequently hired will receive book prizes worth DM 20. In addition, a large proportion of police authorities now grant officers who have recruited a candidate who at least appears for the selection test a day off duty as a reward.
211 In Essen, a police film and image center is set up at the State Police School for Technology and Traffic. Due to the high cost of educational films made by external production companies, the decision was made to make their own films within the police force and lend them to police stations. The first in-house police production is the film "The Harmless Lovers", which describes how police officers protect themselves when intervening. This is followed by numerous other films for the recruitment of new recruits as well as criminal and tactical topics. Films are also made for optical space shooting systems.
212. August 27. Police officer fatally shoots another officer. During the night-time arrest of a car thief, Detective Superintendent Peter Baum is critically injured by a shot fired by a colleague from Cologne. The officer finally dies on Christmas Eve as a result of his injuries following several brain operations and jaundice.
213. In 1965, North Rhine-Westphalian police officers use firearms in 160 cases. Warning shots are fired 64 times, targeted shots 96 times. In 30 cases people are injured, in six cases there are fatalities.
214. November 8. Police officer killed. In Remscheid, police sergeant Karl Sewing is shot through the side window of his patrol car by a criminal known to the police for no apparent reason.
215th new recruitment: In 1965, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia recruits a total of 2,546 new officers to the uniformed police service in an attempt to counteract the foreseeable shortage of personnel due to retirement. Around 1,200 officers are younger, 1,200 older, and more than 100 officers are transferred from the BGS. Due to the oversupply of jobs in the private and public sectors, it has been difficult in recent years to find a sufficient number of suitable applicants for the police positions on offer.
216. equipment of the Water Police (WSP): The WSP in NRW is currently equipped with several different types of boats. The standard police boat has a length of 15.5 m, is 3.20 m wide and has a draught of 1.1 m. The boats are each equipped with an 8-cylinder Deutz diesel engine with 155 hp and reach a speed of 22 to 25 km/h, depending on the water conditions. The WSP 5, a Rhine radar boat, has a length of 17 m and has two Deutz diesel engines with a combined output of 560 hp and a top speed of 43 km/h. The crew consists of 3 - 4 officers. In addition, canal boats with a length of 12 m, an engine with 100 HP and a top speed of 22 km/h are operated. There are also police inflatable boats and light aluminum boats with outboard motors to monitor water sports traffic and bathing operations.
217 New service pistol: The previous 9 mm caliber police pistol is replaced by a smaller weapon (Walther PPK) with a caliber of 7.65 mm. The first examples of the new weapon are delivered in 1965.
218th Drunk police officers at the wheel: In 1965, blood samples had to be taken from 125 police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia who were caught driving under the influence of alcohol. 92 of them had a blood alcohol concentration of more than one per mille, and 27 of them were even measured at more than two per mille. In the two previous years, there had been a similar number of drunk driving incidents involving police officers.

1966

219 February 16. The first inspector of the police, Karl Bremer, dies at the age of 70. He had held the office from 1948 to 1956.
220. June 21. The Langenberg serial killer Jürgen Bartsch is arrested and imprisoned by the police. Between 1962 and 1966, Bartsch had gradually lured four boys aged between 8 and 13 into an air raid shelter, tortured them there and killed them cruelly. The police tracked down the pedophile, who was 19 years old at the time of his arrest, after a fifth victim managed to escape from the bunker and inform the police. Bartsch was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1967, but died in 1976 after an anesthetic accident during his castration.  The Essen criminal investigation department set up a 25-strong homicide squad in 1966 after a connection between several of the crimes was suspected. The investigation also made extensive use of public searches. For example, a few days before Bartsch was arrested, a police loudspeaker van drove through the Georg Melches Stadium in Essen during the half-time break of the Red-White-Essen v Saarbrücken match. Larger-than-life photos of the missing children were mounted on the vehicle. In addition, 30 police and criminal investigation officers distributed 26,000 flyers among the fans.  
221. October 25: The police helicopter squadron is divided into the "Rhineland" and "Westphalia" squadrons. While the "Rhineland" squadron remains in Düsseldorf, the "Westphalia" squadron moves to Dortmund. Each sub-squadron is made up of a squadron commander, four helicopter commanders and four flight attendants.
222 The NRW police force has 30,200 posts for police officers.
223 NRW police officers receive a new uniform. The first sets of green-coated suits are issued in spring 1966. In future, the uniform will no longer have an external waist belt and the baton will be carried concealed in a pocket in the right trouser leg. The new small police pistol can be worn both on the outside and concealed. The trouser legs are cut much tighter than on the old uniforms. Unlike the old ones, the new suit jackets no longer have patch pockets on the outside. This gives the uniform a less military look overall. The cost of the initial outfitting is DM 240 per man.  
224 Further branches of the "Erich Klausener" state police school are set up in Altena and Stukenbrock.
225. May 18. Following the sighting of a beluga whale in the Rhine near Duisburg, the water police track the animal for several days. Attempts to catch it with a net stretched between two boats and with snares fail. The stray whale, whose visit to the Rhine had triggered a huge media response and attracted countless onlookers to the river, finally reaches the North Sea again at the end of May and disappears.
226. December 1. Franz Meyers (CDU) becomes the new Minister of the Interior. He had already held the office from 1952 to 1956. His new term of office lasts just one week. On December 8, his predecessor Willy Weyer (FDP) again becomes Minister of the Interior.
227. December 10. In Minden, there is a robbery of a department store cash messenger, in which one of the two perpetrators seriously injures the messenger with a shot. The police, who had observed the purse with the loot and a pistol hidden near the scene of the crime, are able to arrest a detective as the perpetrator. He is sentenced to 12 years in prison.

1967

228 The North Rhine-Westphalian police force has 31,600 authorized posts (an increase of 1,400 posts compared to the previous year).
229. April 26. The police's own breeding of service dogs is discontinued by decree. The Ministry of the Interior has thus followed a suggestion made by Chief Constable Krause from the State Police School for Service Dog Handlers, who has been rewarded with DM 600 for his idea as part of the official suggestion scheme. Krause had calculated that in the police breeding of dogs, only one in six animals is suitable for use as a police dog, but the state would still have to pay the breeding costs for all the animals. The state would thus be spending around DM 12,000 per year unnecessarily. It would make more sense to purchase suitable animals from external breeders.
230) The police crime statistics, which have been kept since 1953, will be converted to electronic data processing in NRW. The same applies to police personnel and sickness statistics.
October 231, 20. The television series "Aktenzeichen XY ungelöst" is broadcast for the first time. The show, hosted by journalist Eduard Zimmermann, presents unsolved crimes and calls on viewers to help find the perpetrators. A balance sheet presented in 2007 in the 400th episode shows that 42% of all crimes presented were solved and 445 of the 1,200 murder cases presented were solved thanks to tips from viewers alone.
October 232. From October 1967 to March 1968, room 300 of the Wuppertal police headquarters is used as a courtroom for the spectacular "Bialystok Trial". In this trial, 14 active and former police officers were sentenced to long prison terms for their involvement in the murder of over 1,000 Jews in the Polish town of Bialystok in June 1941. Most of the Jews had been driven into the local synagogue by German police officers. The synagogue was set on fire so that the people inside perished cruelly.  Two Wuppertal police officers were among the main defendants. Some of the officers had initially been able to make a considerable career in the police force after the war. Some of the life sentences were overturned in 1973 due to a procedural error and commuted to lesser sentences.
September 233. Accompanied driving at the age of 17: Wuppertal's head of education, Professor Spohn, attracts attention with an unusual proposal. He calls for a "youth driver's license" for 17-year-olds, who should initially be accompanied by adult drivers on the roads. The Wuppertal police supported the idea and provided a discarded VW Beetle patrol car, a youth driving school and police instructors in a "youth driving school" run by the motor sports department of the Wuppertal police to give theoretical and practical instruction to young people who were interested. However, the legal implementation of the driving license at 17 is not yet in sight. However, graduates of the youth driving school receive a discount at the driving schools in Wuppertal when purchasing their driving license.
234th bank burglary: Unknown perpetrators dig six meters into a tunnel under the vault of a Commerzbank branch in Düsseldorf. They burn open the vault and escape with DM 400,000.  
235 November/December: North Rhine-Westphalia takes part in the "Federal Investigation Day". After the registers of all 700 residents' registration offices in the state have been compared with the wanted data from the police's wanted books in a first stage, 12,500 police and law enforcement officers are sent out on December 2 to determine the whereabouts of wanted persons and make arrests. In NRW alone, 394 of the 2,840 people wanted for arrest are arrested as part of the federal manhunt day. In addition, the whereabouts of over 1,100 people who are wanted for arrest can be determined. The persons were not only found at their residential addresses, but also during raids at train stations, "in dubious overnight accommodation (...), dubious bars for foreigners" and in bars used by commercial and habitual criminals
236th Police Sportsman of the Year 1967 is police chief constable Hans-Georg Priebe, Wuppertal riot police. He won the open class in the team all-around competition.

1968

237. January 1. The stocks of police clothing are now recorded using a data processing system, unlike before. The stock held by the clothing stores in NRW is around 8 million marks, the stock held by police officers is around 35 million marks, the annual volume of new purchases is 8 million marks.
January 238, 24. A police sports training center is set up on the grounds of the riot police in Wuppertal. In future, this new facility will not only be used to train trainers. The search for and selection of talented police officers will also find a home here.
239 Mass demonstrations and student unrest. After a wave of 70 demonstrations in a short space of time, Interior Minister Weyer says: "We have now reached the point where the citizens have had enough". He does have sympathy for some protest actions, for example because of the increase in streetcar fares. However, the way in which people demonstrate is unacceptable. If, for example, streetcar tracks are occupied and tired night workers are prevented from going home as a result, this would constitute a criminal offense. Weyer also sees the danger that "well-known types" such as the student leader Rudi Dutschke would provide arguments for the NPD, which is just waiting to be able to present itself as the state's new regulatory factor.
240. the number of target posts for police officers is now 32,800 (an increase of 1,200 posts compared to the previous year)
241. improvement in training and the selection of applicants. Interior Minister Weyer wants to improve the selection procedures and training of police officers. To date, around 16% of all police trainees fail their exams. As each student costs around 14,000 marks, a lot of money is lost here. In addition, police officers should receive English lessons so that, for example, foreigners who need police assistance can be greeted by officers with a polite "Do you speak English" and instructed in English. The officers' ability to cope with stress, which is often still lacking at present, is also to be improved by adapting their training. Officers should be enabled to react calmly to provocations.
242 From the Criminal Police Prevention Program for March 1968 on the subject of "False Officers": "They have faces like you and me: the letter carrier, the gasman, the police officer. It is not the official mask that should identify them, but the official ID card with photo and seal! Always ask to see an ID card! Check it carefully. Take your time! Ask questions! Make a note of your name and office as a precaution. Anyone who really comes from the office will understand. Crooks, however, usually leave. If in doubt, call your neighbors or the police. The crook with an official face must not be allowed to get away."
243 A warning fine pad in the form of a tear-off pad will now be introduced for warning fines following administrative offenses, which will be carried by every police officer. Initially, the pad will only contain sections for warnings of DM 2 and DM 5. On the upper half of the respective sheet, the officer writes the traffic offense, the lower part of the sheet is torn off and handed to the road user as a receipt. Previously, the payment of fines was acknowledged with full-page receipt sheets. The officers had to carry several warning fine blocks for the different amounts of money (1, 2, 5 DM).
February 244: At the traffic judges' conference in Goslar, 400 traffic judges, public prosecutors and experts as well as lawyers call on the government to set the limit for driving ability after drinking alcohol at 0.8 per mille.
April 245. The first police language laboratory is set up in the riot police department II in Bochum. The facility has one teacher and 24 student booths in which police students are taught the English language. The teacher can use a mixer to play texts from records, tapes and the radio and monitor the young officers' speaking exercises, which are recorded on tape, in the booths.
246. April 11. Blockade of the Springer publishing house in Essen: After the assassination attempt on student leader Rudi Dutschke in Berlin, there are also riots by pupils and students in Essen. Around 2,000 to 2,500 demonstrators besiege the publishing house of the Bild newspaper and prevent the delivery of the freshly printed newspapers. The demonstrators build barricades and set them on fire. The police are initially heavily outnumbered and are unable to prevent the blockade of the press building for several hours. Only by deploying several hundred police from all over North Rhine-Westphalia was it finally possible to break the blockade using water cannons and other means.
247 The head of the State School of Criminal Investigation in Düsseldorf, Werner Hamacher, expressly forbids the use of rank in his school. He is of the opinion that addressing people by their rank teaches them to be "uncritical yes-men". Anyone who insists on being addressed by rank obviously needs it.
248 Introduction of the official title "police district commissioner" (A 13).
249 A circular decree specifies which departments are entitled to a radio or television set supplied for official use. According to this decree, for example, the head of the authorities and the police headquarters are each entitled to a radio set, while the criminal investigation departments are also entitled to a television set.
250 Among the German athletes taking part in the Olympic Games in Mexico are four police officers from North Rhine-Westphalia: 28-year-old high diver Bernd Wucherpfennig from Düsseldorf, 41-year-old marksman Erich Masurat, Manfred Kinder, 30 years old and 400m relay runner, and 31-year-old Manfred Knickenberg, German champion in the 100m race.
September 251, 5. The recruitment of suitable applicants for the intermediate criminal service and their selection and recruitment is decentralized by circular decree and now transferred directly to the district police authorities.
252 After the Federal Ministry of Transport had declared alarm systems on motor vehicles inadmissible in 1961, such systems are now permitted subject to strict conditions: The systems must not be triggered by vehicle vibration, the alarm must not be associated with switching on the vehicle lights and the alarm must switch off automatically after 10 - 12 seconds.
253 A new police union, the Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter (BDK), is founded to primarily represent the interests of the criminal investigation department. In addition to the BDK, there are also the Public Transport and Traffic Union (ÖTV), the Police Union (GdP) and the Police Union in the German Civil Service Association (PDB) as professional representative bodies for the state police forces.
254. reputation of the police among the population. In a nationwide survey, the Wickert Institute found that 76% of the population rate the politeness and objectivity of the police positively. The North Rhine-Westphalia police force scored significantly higher in this regard, putting it at the top of the nationwide popularity scale. 90% of North Rhine-Westphalians believe that they have a good police force. By comparison, only 64% of people in Bavaria like their police force. The survey shows for NRW: The higher the respondents' level of education, the worse their opinion of the police. Opinions are mixed when it comes to the behavior of police officers at demonstrations. While 35% of respondents thought that the police should take more forceful action here, 31% advocated more generosity towards demonstration participants.  
255. the police are equipped with a white plastic helmet, which replaces the black jackets. The inexpensive helmet (28 DM) is initially issued in 10,000 units. A further 16,000 helmets are to be added the following year.
256 Demonstrations generate a lot of overtime. Due to a sharp increase in demonstration operations, 304,000 hours of overtime are worked by the NRW police between January and July 1968 for large-scale operations alone. Of this, 74,000 cannot be reduced in the same period.
257 Interior Minister Weyer rejects renewed demands for mandatory identification of police officers with name badges or service numbers. He justifies this by stating that identification does not normally cause any difficulties and that in the case of large-scale operations only the anonymity of the officers is removed, but not that of troublemakers, which would put the officers in a disadvantaged position.

1969

258. January 1. Police officers now receive an allowance for "duty at inconvenient times" (DUZ) under certain conditions.
259 Completion and occupation of the new building of the State Office of Criminal Investigation on Völklinger Straße in Düsseldorf. Construction costs of 8.8 million marks were incurred for the 50,600 square meters of enclosed space. In addition, the technical installations cost a further 3.1 million marks.  The State Office of Criminal Investigation now has 350 employees.  The head of the State Office of Criminal Investigation, Günter Grasner, retires. His successor is Mathias Eynck.  Born in 1914, Eynck had joined the Dortmund police force in 1937 after completing his military service.
260. March 31. The inspector of the NRW police, Walter Baak, retires at the end of the month.  He is succeeded by Emil Seeling. The senior police inspector was born in Bocholt in 1914 and joined the police force in 1935. By the end of the war, he had reached the rank of captain in the police force. After the end of the war, he was reinstated as an inspector in the Düsseldorf police force in 1947. After holding various positions there and with the Dortmund police, he was appointed inspector.
261. July 14. Police murder. At night, a Bottrop police patrol checks a parked car in which Alfred Lecki, who has just escaped from prison, is asleep and wearing only his underwear. When Lecki realizes that the police are standing by his car, he jumps out, runs away, but turns around after a few meters and shoots at the two completely surprised officers. The 51-year-old police sergeant Theodor Klein collapses, fatally wounded. His colleague is seriously injured by gunfire. Lecki initially manages to escape. He escapes three more times after being arrested and commits serious crimes. He is finally sentenced to life imprisonment for the police murder.
262 July. Amendment to the Police Organization Act. The police office type of authority is abolished. This affects the Hamm and Iserlohn district police authorities. In future, there will only be police directorates and police headquarters. However, the old designations will be retained on a transitional basis until a decision has been made on municipal reorganization in the affected districts. The tasks and powers of the police will now also be more clearly separated. Whereas previously most police measures were based on the general clause of Section 14 of the Police Administration Act, the powers of intervention in the Police Act are now more differentiated.
263 An amendment to the Regulatory Authorities Act relieves the police of their original responsibility for stationary traffic. In future, the local authorities' public order offices will be responsible for this. The police will only act in an auxiliary capacity in the event of parking violations.
September 264. As of September 1, the female criminal investigation department in NRW employs 362 female officers. 20 of these positions are for women in training.
265. October 1. The Higher State Police School (HLPS) opens in Münster. It replaces the former Hiltrup Police Institute. At the Höhere Landespolizeischule (Higher State Police School), police commissioner applicants from the security and criminal investigation departments are trained for their future duties in the senior civil service. The school starts with 145 police officer applicants. The first courses also include officers from Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Afghanistan.
266 The number of target posts for police officers is reduced by 150 compared to 1968 to a good 32,600 posts.
267 Renaming of the training and command staff in Bork to "Directorate of Riot Police".
268 Walter Schorn resigns as Director of the Hiltrup Police Command and Staff College. He goes into retirement. He is succeeded by Dr. Otto Rückert in December 1969.  
269. September 30. Günter Grasner retires. He was Director of the State Office of Criminal Investigation.
270 The International Police Association (IPA) leases Gimborn Castle in the Oberberg district and establishes an international training center for police officers there. The castle, which was built at the beginning of the 17th century, is subsequently used to train more than a thousand seminar participants every year.
271 In a major reform of criminal law, sexual offenses undergo a paradigm shift from "offenses against morality" to "offenses against sexual self-determination.  At the same time, the criminalization of certain sexual acts such as homosexuality between adult men (§ 175 StGB) was abolished. This norm had gradually lost its acceptance in society, as had other criminal norms that were abolished as part of the reform, such as adultery (§ 172 StGB).
272. In 1969, the state granted its police officers more than 36,000 hours of special leave, 22% of which was without pay. The volume of special leave corresponds to an average daily absence of 165 police officers. Calculated for all officers who took special leave, an average of just under 5 days of special leave was granted. The main reason for special leave was primarily private training and further education (A-levels, university degrees, etc.), followed by family reasons such as deaths, births of children and marriages and, in third place, attendance at conferences for trade union purposes.
273. more generous selection procedures due to staff shortages. In view of 2,000 unfilled positions in the police force, Interior Minister Weyer decides that police doctors should be generous in their assessment of applicants' height and long-term fitness for duty. For example, the prognosis should only have to cover a safe fitness for service of 15 - 20 years instead of the previous 40 years.
274. expansion of competencies for the State Office of Criminal Investigation. In future, the State Office of Criminal Investigation is to take up its own investigations in particularly serious cases on the instructions of the Ministry of the Interior. In addition, it will now also be able to issue factual instructions to district police authorities within the scope of its responsibility as an intelligence collection and analysis agency.
275 The State Office of Criminal Investigation begins to set up an electronically managed central information file for the criminal investigation department. In a first step, 2.3 million existing criminal files are to be entered into the computer. In a second stage, from 1971, the references to the criminal files are to be supplemented by brief information on the contents of the files. This will do away with the cumbersome procedure whereby a police authority seeking information has to send a telex to all 77 other district police authorities to find out whether a file on a person is held there.
November 276: Helmut Reininghaus becomes the new head of the riot police. Born in Lüdenscheid in 1914, Reininghaus had joined the Dortmund riot police after leaving school and passed the officer training course in 1938. By the end of the war, he had reached the rank of major in the police force. After initially being reinstated as a police instructor after the war, he held a number of management positions in various police authorities. Most recently, he was head of the police force in Essen from 1966 to 1969.

Figure 4: The Essen police control center around 1968 (Source: Klaus Brück)

70s                                   

Hardly any other crime phenomenon has left such a strong mark on the North Rhine-Westphalian police as the acts of terror committed by the "Red Army Faction". A group of embittered young people, who saw society as oppressed by capitalism and wanted to strike a blow of liberation against "capital" and the authorities, managed to keep people in North Rhine-Westphalia and the rest of Germany on tenterhooks for many years from the mid-1970s with acts of terror. The group, which initially formed under the leadership of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, fought against everything state-sponsored with kidnappings and bloody murders, but without being able to present a counter-concept for the state, from whose shackles they had to free people according to their ideology. One of the cruel highlights of their activities was the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the president of the employers' association, which ended in 1977 with the death of three police officers and the murder of the business leader. As a result of these events, which the police had previously had little to counter, they had to reorganize themselves. The police force was strengthened, special units were set up and trained, and the police were armed and their public appearance became more martial. Nevertheless, it will not be possible to put an end to terrorism by the end of the 1970s. The search for suitable police personnel took a strange turn, particularly with "Aktion 3000", a kind of competition among police officers to recruit young men. The possibilities of electronic data processing are now also being used in some areas of police work. The establishment of the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration marks the beginning of the academization of police training.

1970

277 In this financial year, the NRW police procure new vehicles for 7.8 million marks: 8 water cannons, 3 clothing delivery vans, 4 Mercedes cars, 584 VW vehicles of various types, 59 Ford 17 M cars, 26 Hanomag-Henschel trucks, 19 Ford Transits and 3 VW Porsches.
278 Police chief constables (pay grade A6), the lowest rank after completion of police training, have a monthly basic salary of 700 marks plus allowances.
279 The target number of police officers is now 33,000, an increase of 300 on the previous year.
280 The police purchase three Mercedes 230 limousines for the highway patrol for "overtaking traffic surveillance". In contrast to the Porsche vehicles previously used, the Mercedes vehicles can carry all the necessary traffic equipment. If the vehicles prove their worth, Interior Minister Willi Weyer plans to purchase them for all highway stations in NRW.
281 Centralization of the police. The district police authorities are requested to examine which small police stations can possibly be abolished and consolidated into larger stations in order to avoid fragmentation of the police force. This applies in particular to police stations and police group stations where only a few officers are on duty.
282. police profession unattractive: While the NRW police recruited 4,242 applicants aged 16 to 36 in 1969 and 1970, 771 officers of the same age group left the police force during this period alone. Only one in 20 left the force due to disability or death. A study by the state police academy shows that many new recruits would not choose the police profession a second time or that a significant number would not recommend it to their sons. The reasons given for this are the lack of social prestige of the police, pay that is not commensurate with performance and a lack of opportunities for promotion. Just 6% of all police officers make it into the senior civil service (commissioner and above) and only 0.5% into the higher civil service (council and above).
283. June 26. Five police officers drown in a ship collision on the Rhine near Neuss. 16 police officers and seven other men had been partying privately on the yacht "Wildente" when it collided with a push boat with a tonnage of 4000 tons. In addition to the officers aged between 28 and 58, three other men were killed in the accident.  
284th Commitment to hardship: Interior Minister Weyer declares: "The police officer is (...) not a member of a charitable organization, he is not a graduate of a social academy or a church college and is not trained for certain pastoral tasks". Weyer is thus contradicting the demands of the deputy GdP state chairman, police director Kurt Gintzel, who is calling for a "citizen-oriented police force".
285. social structure of the police: With the help of modern data processing, social data of the North Rhine-Westphalian police can be compiled for the first time. According to this data, over 74% of police officers have a primary school leaving certificate, 22.5% have a secondary school leaving certificate and 2.5% have a high school diploma. 85% of police officers are married, 27% have one child and 2 officers have more than 10 children. Around one in four officers speaks English, 75 officers speak Russian and 2,050 French. 38% of officers have earned the sports badge, 40% have the DLRG performance and training certificate. Officers who worked in other professions before joining the police force come from a wide range of different occupations. For example, 1,000 police officers were previously farmers and 1,050 were car mechanics. In addition, 83 radio mechanics, 2,400 office workers, 60 innkeepers and waiters, 89 musicians and 23 other artists, 192 hairdressers and 11 publicists and interpreters joined the police force. Among female civil servants, there were 82 office workers, 66 kindergarten teachers and 68 members of the social professions.
286 As in the other federal states and the Federal Criminal Police Office, the North Rhine-Westphalian police launched the tele-imaging service. The tele-image service, which operates via the special police telephone network, enables the rapid transmission of photographs, fingerprints and traces, handwriting samples, documents and other pictorial and graphic representations. It now allows the transmission of such data between all connected police stations.  At the same time, a trial with image transmission devices in patrol cars is being launched at Düsseldorf Police Headquarters. Such receivers are installed in two vehicles. The DM 12,000 transmitter, with which images or texts can be transmitted to the patrol cars, is located at police headquarters. The receivers in the patrol cars cost DM 4,000 each.
287. elegant accommodation for riot police. The state concludes a lease agreement for Schellenberg Castle in Essen. The 12th century aristocratic residence is to serve as accommodation and training facilities for the riot police, who need more space. However, the castle is no longer needed for the riot police in the mid-1980s and is used from then on by the "Carl Severing" Higher State Police School as a training center.
288 Since October 1970, younger police officers have also been recruited. The minimum age limit is now 16. The police leadership sees this as a major problem, as the young officers are in the middle of puberty and the German government's youth report states that the younger generation is sexually mature earlier than the previous generation, but mentally delayed.
289 A branch of riot police department IV is set up in Linnich in Euskirchen.

1971

290. January 31. State Director of Criminal Investigation Oskar Wenzky retires.  
291. February 4. Start of the "12th Great Police Show" of the "Carl Severing" State Police School in the Münsterland Hall in Münster. In addition to various police music corps from Germany and abroad, various NRW police sports teams, the motorcycle quadrille of the Münster traffic monitoring unit and various dance groups perform. A collection is also organized for the "Aktion Sorgenkind" charity.
292 The target strength of the NRW police force is now 33,500 officers (up 500 on 1970).
293 April: 8,000 police officers, mostly in uniform, demonstrate in Düsseldorf on the initiative of the police union for a social and financial upgrade. Afterwards, Interior Minister Weyer says of the demonstrators carrying black flags and banners such as "stepchildren of the state" that the uniform had been misused for demonstration purposes. State Secretary of the Interior Stakemeier sees "the public's ultimate trust in the reliability of the police shaken".
294. April 28. Swearing-in of 1,500 young police officers of the riot police in Bochum.
295. police-internal acquisition of the advanced technical college entrance qualification: The state police school for technology and traffic in Essen offers police officers the opportunity to obtain the advanced technical college entrance qualification from the police for the first time. The first course begins in 1971 with 24 volunteers. The officers, some of whom have been at school for more than 15 years, are taught subjects such as mathematics, physics, a foreign language and humanities.
296. the "Aktion 3000" recruitment competition is continued. As part of this competition, all police officers are encouraged to recruit people interested in the police profession. Competition documents are sent to all 40,000 police officers in the state. For successful recruitment of new police officers, 200 prizes worth between 100 and 3,000 marks (trips, non-cash prizes, cash) will be raffled off among the recruiters. In addition, every successful recruiter receives a book prize.  The campaign is the result of the country's great difficulties in finding suitable applicants for the police service.
October 297, 19. The five-seater SA 341 Gazelle turbine helicopter is unveiled in Düsseldorf-Lohhausen in the presence of Interior Minister Weyer. The NRW police initially receive two of the helicopters, each costing 790,000 marks. A world speed record of 312 km/h was set with a helicopter of this type. The machine can be set up to transport an injured person in just a few simple steps.
298 In Cologne, District President Dr. Heidecke hands over a men's hostel consisting of two buildings for single police officers. This takes account of the fact that many young police officers are applying for jobs away from Cologne, not least because of the high rents, thus weakening the authority. While on the free housing market in Cologne, small apartments can hardly be found for less than 200 marks, the rent in the men's hostel is 95 DM per month for a single room and 65 DM for a double room. The rent includes all utilities and bed linen.
December 299: After a bank robbery in Cologne, senior detective Hans Krauss and criminal director Werner Hamacher make themselves available to the perpetrators as hostages in order to secure the release of a female hostage. They eventually have to drive the robbers to the Saar and are released there.
300 Road safety: Only 2% of all drivers currently own cars with laminated glass windscreens. The remaining 98% have so far opted for safety glass, which crumbles in accidents, for cost reasons. Safety glass is responsible for 95% of all serious eye injuries treated in hospitals. The rate of serious head and chest injuries to vehicle occupants could be reduced by 60 - 85 % if vehicle owners decided to install safety belts. Seat belts are already required by law in the GDR, Sweden and the USA.
301 New traffic regulations: The reform of the Highway Code also brings new features for the police. For example, "dawdling", driving slowly for no reason, is now a punishable offense. Drivers who want to overtake, change lanes or pull over from the side of the road must now indicate this with their indicators. The triangular stop sign has been replaced by an octagonal red stop sign. It is now also mandatory to create a lane for police cars and ambulances on duty.
302. November 29. Kidnapping. Essen grocer Theo Albrecht, co-owner of the ALDI stores, is kidnapped on his evening drive home from the company headquarters in Herten to his house in Essen. The kidnappers demand a ransom of 7 million marks. After 17 days, Albrecht is finally released. Cardinal Hengsbach from Essen, who had been in contact with the kidnappers without the police, hands over the ransom money and takes charge of the kidnapped man. The Essen police finally identify the kidnappers as the safecracker Paul Kron and the 47-year-old Düsseldorf lawyer Heinz-Joachim Ollenburg. Both are arrested. About half of the loot is never found again, the rest is found by the investigators packed in plastic bags and buried in the woods near Ratingen and in the district of Recklinghausen.
303 The working week for police officers in NRW is reduced from 43 to 42 hours.
304 In 1971, there is still no standardized emergency number for the police. The emergency number 110 is only available in 1,000 of 3,700 local telephone networks.
305 The police vehicle fleet is considerably renewed in 1971. Over 2,100 new vehicles are purchased for DM 16 million, including around 200 radio bikes. This means that around a third of the vehicle fleet is now from this year. Nevertheless, rationalization is also necessary in the motor vehicle sector. For example, the current practice of driving to the police's own filling stations regardless of distance must be abandoned. In some cases, the journey is 20 kilometers or more. Private filling stations must now be used more frequently for refueling. The same is to apply to the repair and maintenance of police vehicles in future.

1972

306. January 14. Death during vehicle inspection. In Minden, police sergeant Hans-Werner Krachudel is dragged 33 meters by the driver's vehicle after a pursuit when the drunken 28-year-old perpetrator tries to flee during the check. The 44-year-old officer and family man had caught his boot on the bumper of the offender's vehicle when it started up again. Hans-Werner Krachudel dies of his injuries in hospital.
307. February 1. Police image campaign. In cooperation with the ADAC and Radio Luxembourg, the police launch an image campaign under the patronage of Interior Minister Weyer. The public is called upon via radio to find an affectionate nickname for the police. Apparently as part of the charm offensive, Weyer is jovially addressed by the presenter on the show by his first name "Willi". Among the nicknames received after the show, memorable suggestions include Tschako, Charmy, Grünspecht, Uniformvati, Polifair, Polimax, Stoppi, Bulli and Polli.  The name "Polli" finally finds the most supporters in a vote as part of the radio campaign "Million Hunt for a Name". However, the name does not subsequently enter common usage. The much less affectionate term "Bulle" (bull) remains the leading name.
308 In Düsseldorf, the telecommunications service of the police headquarters is equipped with the first electronic-automatic telex switchboard in the country. These computer systems with monitors are to be successively introduced nationwide.  
309. February 9. Police murder. The 32-year-old police sergeant Hans-Dieter Lange is shot dead in Cologne by a fleeing burglar. He is buried a week later in Cologne, attended by 3,500 uniformed police officers and 2,000 plainclothes mourners.
310th Water Police and drowning deaths: In 1972, the officers of the Water Police had to deal with 113 suicides and 67 fatal accidents. All 180 bodies were recovered.  
311. lack of use of radio equipment: In a decree, Interior Minister Weyer demands that police officers carry hand-held radios with them at all times, not just during special operations. He also requires his police officers to keep the radios in their patrol cars switched on at all times.
312. May 25. Death during a pursuit. Police officers Heinz Peter Groten and Paul Wilke, Aachen police, die in a traffic accident during a pursuit. The drunk driver who caused the accident also dies in the accident.
313 The office of the highest-ranking police officer is newly filled. Werner Haas, born in Wanne-Eickel in 1921, becomes the new State Director of Criminal Investigation. Haas was deployed as a fighter pilot during the Second World War and joined the police force in 1946 after being taken prisoner of war. After becoming a criminal councillor in 1964, he was initially tasked with intensifying the fight against crime in Cologne. Before his appointment as State Director of Criminal Investigation, he had been a consultant in the Ministry of the Interior.
June 314, 22. Hair and beard decree: The Minister of the Interior publishes a circular in which he instructs that the hair and beard of police officers must comply with "the requirements of the service". For example, hair must not "protrude beyond the collar of the coat or skirt" and must lie close to the head. Ears must not be covered by overhanging hair, beards and sideburns must be short. Officers who do not conform to this external image are to be instructed by their superiors to cut their hair by individual order.
315. three police officers murdered in Oberhausen. During an attempt to execute a search warrant for unauthorized possession of weapons against 45-year-old chemical worker Karl-Heinz Girod, various self-protection rules are disregarded, causing the situation to escalate. Girod initially succeeds in distracting the criminal investigation department's search team. As he is not searched, the fact that he is carrying a firearm in his waistband is overlooked. Girod manages to shoot two detectives, barricades himself and his wife in his apartment and, with the support of his wife and adult sons, engages in a half-day gun battle with the police. A total of three police officers, Detective Chief Werner Karp (46 years old), Günter Olfen (26 years old) and Hermann Schulte-Holthaus (58 years old), are shot dead during this operation.
316 Recruitment advisors are deployed in all police authorities from 1972.
317: Computerized manhunt for the first time: The first 35 terminals of the INPOL wanted persons database go into operation across the federal states.  The system stores information on wanted persons, which can now be accessed throughout Germany.
318th Interior Minister Weyer decides to train snipers in the NRW police force. He wants 15 to 20 officers at each police headquarters, 10 at police directorates and 4 to 10 officers at regional police directorates, depending on their size, to receive special marksmanship training. After the training, the police will have a total of 500 snipers. In an initial campaign, 90 G1 machine guns with telescopic sights will be distributed to the country's authorities. A further batch of 150 rifles of the improved G3 type is to follow.
319 Centralization of police stations. The request made in 1970 by the Minister of the Interior to the district police authorities to abandon small police stations in favor of larger ones had borne extensive fruit by the end of 1972. Across the country, 394 police stations and police group stations were closed and 145 police stations were formed. This marked a clear move away from the "police station around the corner".
320th Radicals Decree: On the basis of a directive negotiated by the federal government and the federal states at the beginning of 1972, the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister President and all ministers issue a decree denying applicants for civil service who belong to anti-constitutional organizations access to public office. At the same time, civil servants who belong to such organizations must be examined to determine whether they should be removed from office.  In response to a question from the state parliament, Interior Minister Weyer explained in December that five police officers across the state are currently known to be members of radical political groups. However, the requirements for removal from office had not yet been met. Five police applicants have so far been rejected on the basis of the aforementioned regulation.
June 321. Police Sportsman of the Year 1971 is Police Captain Erich Masurat from the Krefeld Police Department. Masurat became German champion with the free pistol, European police champion in the team competition with the rapid-fire pistol and German police champion in the rapid-fire and sport pistol.
322 The waterway police set up a special unit to combat environmental crime. The eight detectives in this unit deal exclusively with the prosecution of crimes against the environment.
323. 23 data stations in North Rhine-Westphalia now allow vehicles to be tracked quickly. Patrol car crews can now find out in a matter of seconds whether a vehicle is wanted or not.
324 Bernd Wucherpfennig from the Düsseldorf police force is named Police Sportsman of the Year 1972 by the Minister of the Interior. He won the German championship in high diving and also took part in the Olympic Games in Munich.
325th The "Rheinland" helicopter squadron in Düsseldorf puts a new aircraft, the Alouette III, into operation. It is a proven machine that is already in service in 65 countries. The helicopter, which costs 1 million Deutschmarks, can carry five people in addition to the pilot and the flight attendant and can cover 650 kilometers at a speed of 220 km/h. The helicopter can carry two injured people on stretchers. Two injured people can be transported on stretchers after traffic accidents.
326. killed in the line of duty: Between May 8, 1945 and December 31, 1972, 312 law enforcement officers lost their lives in the line of duty in North Rhine-Westphalia, 290 of whom were police protection officers.

1973

327. January 1. Reorganization in the Bielefeld area. Due to a municipal reorganization in the Bielefeld area, several district police authorities are dissolved and new ones formed in their place. The city of Bielefeld and the district of Bielefeld are merged into a single city. The new district police authority is called "The Bielefeld Police Chief". The former districts of Halle/Westphalia and Wiedenbrück are merged to form the district of Gütersloh. The district police authority created here is now the "Gütersloh Chief District Director as District Police Authority". The districts of Detmold and Lemgo are merged to form the district of Lippe (the senior district director as the Detmold district police authority) and the former districts of Minden and Lübbecke are merged to form the district of Minden-Lübbecke (the senior district director as the Minden district police authority).
328. February 12. Police officer killed as hostage. A 25-year-old man takes police officer Manfred Tophoven, Hagen police, hostage while attempting to arrest him and flees with him. When the police intervene, the man shoots Manfred Tophoven. He himself is also shot during the action.
329 Laying of the foundation stone for riot police department V in Brühl in August 1973. The department commences operations on 1.10.74.
330. rampant practice of special leave. The granting of special leave in the district police authorities has reached such an extent that, in the words of Interior Minister Weyer, this "gives rise to serious concerns" in view of the security and manpower situation. He describes the generous handling of the granting of special leave as "downright incomprehensible". In the Minister's opinion, in many cases the special leave days only serve to extend recreational leave. He urges those responsible to apply stricter standards as a matter of urgency.
331 The Central Police School in Münster Hiltrup, which has been used for many years to train the next generation of police officers, is converted into the Police Leadership Academy (PFA). Due to a state treaty, the academy is financed by all federal states, as the entire higher service of the federal states is now trained in Hiltrup.
332nd person search now by computer. The computerized personal information system is put into operation on a trial basis. In future, people are to be checked in seconds via inquiries to the authorities' data stations to see whether they are wanted and whether criminal files are held on them by a police authority. The Central Person File (ZPD) will initially be fed with 1.5 million personal data records. It is intended to replace the previous extensive wanted persons books, which were issued to all police stations at close intervals and which could not take account of daily changes to the wanted persons database. The time-consuming inquiries to the Federal Criminal Police Office by telex, which had to be used to check whether an alert was up to date, were also no longer necessary.  In July 1973, there are 23 data stations throughout the country which can be used to carry out searches. The number is to be increased to 60 by the end of the year. The data stations already receive around 3,000 requests per day for vehicle searches from patrol car crews alone - irrespective of the personal search requests.
333 The President of the Hiltrup Police Command and Control Academy, Dr. Otto Rückert, retires. Konrad Peitz becomes the new head of the institution.
334 Since the beginning of February, police radar vehicles have been used to measure speed on the federal highways and federal trunk roads in the state. An antenna box is attached to the outside of the radar vehicles with civilian paintwork. Inside, the vehicles have a display unit for the speed of the vehicles being monitored and a photo camera.
335 Police social data: In 1973, NRW had 34,096 police officers, 5,289 of whom were in the criminal investigation department. 85% of these were in the middle grade, a good 14% in the upper grade and 1% in the higher grade. Only 0.3% of all law enforcement officers are at grade A13 (police district commissioner) in the higher service and just 1% at grade A12 (chief police commissioner). Of 100 police officers, just under 83% were married, 17% were single, 0.2% were divorced and less than 0.1% were widowed. 41 % of officers had no children (entitled to child benefit), 26 % had 1 child and 23 % had 2 children. 10% had three or more children. There is one police officer with 9 children and two with 10 or more children in NRW. In terms of religious affiliation, 46% are Protestant, 47% Catholic, 7% are non-denominational or belong to other denominations. 65% of civil servants have an elementary school education, 24% have a secondary school leaving certificate and 2.4% have a high school diploma. 35 civil servants nationwide have completed a course of study without a degree and 26 civil servants have a university degree. There is no information on the remaining civil servants. Foreign language skills: 5% of police officers speak English, 1% speak French and around 0.5% speak either Spanish, Italian, Russian, Polish or Dutch. Foreign language skills are only slightly higher among criminal investigation officers. 32% of officers have the bronze sports badge, 2.7% have the silver badge and 3.1% have the gold badge. 7% of active police officers in 1973 had already served in the police force during the Third Reich.
336 The level of radio equipment in the North Rhine-Westphalian police force is high. On average, in 1973 there was one vehicle radio for every 4.9 officers and one handheld radio for every six officers. As the officers are never on duty at the same time, there is almost full radio equipment. For comparison: In Saarland, there is one vehicle radio for 13 officers and one handheld radio for 61.5 officers.
337. September 15. Terrorist attack on the British headquarters in Mönchengladbach. Members of the Baader-Meinhof gang set off two butane gas cylinders.  North Rhine-Westphalia is affected by left-wing terrorism for the first time. Previously, the terrorists had focused almost exclusively on Berlin and Munich.
338 Gender language use in 1973: From today's perspective, an article in the Ministry of the Interior magazine "Streife" from 1973, which still seems far removed from the idea of equal rights, should offer plenty of scope for attack by feminists. In a report on the recruitment of female Spanish police officers aged between 18 and 30, it says: "Girls are conquering the police stations. Since mid-1972, Madrid has had a new attraction: girls (!) have been employed as traffic police officers in the busy inner city district. This is not just a publicity stunt to promote tourism, nor are the girls just there as eye candy for local and foreign Don Juans. Quite the opposite: in a purely functional uniform that is anything but sexy, the new traffic wardens carry out their normal traffic police duties."
339 Secondary school leaving certificate for all police school graduates. As a result of the general education courses in the police schools, from 1973 onwards police trainees also receive a secondary school leaving certificate with their vocational qualification.
340 First occupations of police officers: Of the 34,000 police officers in NRW, a considerable number had already completed other occupations before joining the police force. For example, there are around 500 farmers, 1,000 miners, 1,300 members of the construction industry, 1,400 metalworkers, 3,800 locksmiths and plumbers, 750 electricians and 1,100 carpenters and joiners among the officers alone. There were also over 600 unskilled manual workers, 1,400 merchants, 1,800 office clerks, 170 hairdressers, 110 soldiers, 6 lawyers and one social scientist. Several thousand police officers had also worked in a wide range of other occupations.
341. job satisfaction. According to a survey conducted by the Young Group of the Police Union, 64% of the police officers surveyed stated that they would not take up the police profession a second time. The reasons given by the respondents for their dissatisfaction were a lack of democratic practice in the police force, poor employee relations and insufficient opportunities for promotion. The Ministry of the Interior countered in a minor parliamentary question that the survey was not representative, as it was only carried out among readers of the youth union newspaper "Contact". In a representative survey of its own, it was found that only 28% of civil servants were not satisfied with their job.
342. inventory of personnel and resources: The number of police officers, motor vehicles, helicopters, boats, radio equipment and weapons as at 1.6.73 is as follows:
Total police officers (excluding riot police) 30,461
Law enforcement officers, security police 25,333
Law enforcement officers criminal investigation department 5,128
Motor vehicles 6,662
Police patrol cars 2,953
Radio patrol cars criminal investigation department 896
Camera cars with Traffipax systems 101
Radar vans 72
Horse-drawn vehicles 25
Water cannon 26
Special crime vehicles 38
Group vehicles 367
VHF vehicle radios 6,120
Handheld radios 5,000
Police call boxes 2,229
Tele image transmitters 18
Pistols (cal. 7.65 mm) 32,500
Submachine guns 1,150
Rifles 1,100
Bulletproof vests 571
NBC protective masks 26,430
Protective shields 3,876
Optical room firing systems 27
Patrol boats 30
Police helicopters 10

343. application situation: In 1973, 4,777 men apply for the police service. 3,945 are summoned to the selection procedure, of which only 3,708 appear. Almost 2,000 of these are mentally or physically unsuitable for the police service. 1,871 are earmarked for recruitment, some of whom do not wish to be recruited or cannot be recruited for reasons of need. Finally, 1,551 applicants are called up, some of whom do not appear on the recruitment date. In the end, 1,492 civil servants are recruited. There were many reasons for rejecting applicants for health reasons. Of those rejected, around 19% suffered from color vision problems, 7% had insufficient visual acuity, 16% had spinal defects, 7% were too obese and just as many were physically underdeveloped.
344 The state government introduces a bill to form a "voluntary police service" in the state parliament. In this formation, citizens are to perform police duties on a voluntary basis and thus support the district police authorities with personnel.
345. November 8: Alcohol-related accidents involving police officers. At the swearing-in ceremony for 1,500 police trainees in Bochum's Ruhrlandhalle, Interior Minister Weyer complains in his speech that police officers are repeatedly involved in traffic accidents under the influence of alcohol, both with private and official vehicles.  Every year, around 120 - 130 traffic accidents are recorded involving police officers who have a level of alcoholization in the area of absolute impaired driving.
346 The Conference of Interior Ministers decides to increase anniversary bonuses for police officers. In future, officers who have served for 25 years are to receive a one-off payment of DM 350, DM 600 after 40 years and DM 850 after 50 years.
347th Police Ideas Exchange. Minister of the Interior Weyer presents Leverkusen Chief Criminal Investigator Theodor Schweinsmann with a reward of DM 800 from the official suggestion scheme. Schweinsmann had come up with the idea of improving the current wanted lists for stolen vehicles, which are given to officers on patrol. Previously, officers had to take long lists of numbered license plates with them. Due to their size, the lists always had to be laboriously unfolded and refolded. Schweinsmann came up with the idea of dividing the license plates into ten groups according to their final digits, so that the license plates they were looking for now fit on one A4 sheet. This sheet can be attached to the sun visors of the passenger seats of the patrol cars with two rubber bands for easy visibility.
348 In 1973, the waterway police were called out to 27 accidents in which 22 people were injured and five were killed. The fatalities were all accidents in which crew members had fallen overboard and drowned.
December 349. Sports decree. The number of hours of sports on individual duty is reduced from four to two hours per month. At the same time, the Minister of the Interior reminds police officers to keep fit for duty through sport and to do more sport in their free time. All police officers up to the age of 44 are obliged to take part in official sport. Fitness rooms are to be set up in the police stations if the number of officers justifies this.

1974

350. January 6. Fatal use of firearms: In Olpe, police officers called by a woman to a family dispute are threatened by the husband with a small-caliber rifle. The man fires a shot, injuring one of the officers. When he threatens to shoot again, one of the officers fires a well-aimed shot at him and hits him. The man later dies from his injuries.  
351. January 31. Detective as exchange hostage. In Hilden, 26-year-old Greek Serif Bekir Ouglu takes five hostages during a robbery at a savings bank branch. After demanding a ransom of DM 1.5 million and an escape helicopter, he finally receives DM 700,000 and a getaway car, which he climbs into with one of the hostages and drives away. On his night-time odyssey through Düsseldorf, Leverkusen, Langenfeld, Monheim and Hitdorf, shots are fired at several of the pursuing police cars. After Ouglu's car can be stopped, he can be persuaded to exchange the kidnapped bank employee, whom he has in his power, for the Düsseldorf detective Erhard Pfundt. Pfundt, apparently with his hands tied, is able to overpower the bank robber before continuing the escape.
352. February 10. An explosives attack is carried out on the building of the Federation of German Industries in Cologne. The attack is attributed to the Baader-Meinhof gang.
353. the state procures television recording and broadcasting vans for an initial six district police authorities. The vehicles, which are equipped with recording equipment and are delivered to Bielefeld, Bonn, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Essen and Cologne, can transmit film recordings to reception facilities in the respective police headquarters via a camera mounted on a rotating mast and a video transmitter. The cost of each vehicle is DM 100,000. With their film recordings, the vehicles are intended to enable the incident commanders to assess the situation and produce documentary material. The two helicopter squadrons are also each equipped with a television recording and transmission system.
354th Minister of the Interior severely reprimands police officers. In a decree issued by Interior Minister Willi Weyer to the district police authorities, the Interior Minister reprimands an accumulation of misconduct by police officers. He calls on officers to behave in an exemplary manner, as there have been an increasing number of complaints from the public about police officers behaving in an undisciplined manner and displaying poor manners. Police officers should be level-headed, objective and polite. Citizens should be approached with tact and, in the case of misconduct, with an apology. The uniform must be clean and complete, and the hair and beard must be well-groomed. There had also been an increase in cases where police officers were found drunk on the roads. There had also been an increase in criminal acts by police officers. All superiors would have to carry out strict supervision. In the event of failures, Weyer said, he would draw the appropriate consequences for those affected.
355. April 1. The Criminalistic-Criminological Research Center of the Police Management Academy begins its work. The newly established position is initially filled by three senior civil servants and is tasked with conducting research into the causes, phenomena, perpetrators and victims of crime.
356 The working week for police officers in NRW is reduced from 42 to 40 hours.
357. the Düsseldorf district police authority is commissioned with a test run for breath alcohol analyzers. The technical devices, into which people suspected of being under the influence of alcohol are to blow their breath through a tube, are to be used to measure the breath alcohol concentration before a possible blood sample is taken. The devices, which are already being tested by the police in Mainz and are the size of a large radio, are said to have a measurement accuracy of +/- 5%.
358th unsportsmanlike NRW police. During the award ceremony for the "Best North Rhine-Westphalian Police Athletes of 1973", Interior Minister Weyer criticizes the fact that police sport is underdeveloped in NRW and that other federal states produce significantly more good police athletes than NRW. He does not want demonstrators today to be more physically agile than police officers, who would then inevitably have to resort to the baton.
359 Right-wing extremist police officers? The Federal Chairman of the Police Union, Werner Kuhlmann, explains that there are 50 right-wing extremist officers for every left-wing extremist officer in the police force. He refers to the Federal Ministry of the Interior's report on the protection of the constitution. The Ministry of the Interior sharply rejects this claim. There are currently only two police officers who are classified as right-wing extremists and another who was previously a member of a left-wing extremist party but has now left.
360. the first special units are set up in NRW. Special task forces (SEK) and mobile task forces (MEK) are created in Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Cologne, and only one MEK in Bielefeld. This was prompted by the attack by Palestinian terrorists on Israeli athletes in the Olympic village in Munich two years previously. Almost the entire Israeli Olympic team and a German police officer had been killed in the attack.
361st civilian patrols. Following a pilot test in Dortmund with police officers in civilian clothing to monitor road traffic, the Ministry of the Interior suggests that other police authorities should also have plainclothes police officers on patrol.
362: The criminalization of vagrancy (§ 361 StGB) is deleted from the Criminal Code.
May 363: Dr. Hans Bröcker becomes director of the riot police. Bröcker had joined the police in 1946 and later worked as a lecturer at the Hiltrup Police Institute, as head of the protection area in Essen, later as an assistant officer at the IM and subsequently as head of the protection police in Dortmund before he was put in charge of the riot police.  Bröcker succeeds Helmut Reininghaus, who retires on reaching the age limit.
364. June 5. Death after arrest: A 45-year-old member of the German Communist Party dies as a result of physical altercations between police officers and several participants in a hearing at Duisburg Labor Court. As part of a dismissal suit brought by a communist worker against Mannesmann-Werke, the plaintiff uses a loudspeaker to speak from the courtroom to communist supporters who have gathered outside the court building during a break in the proceedings. Several CID officers following the trial in the courtroom then intervene. The officers are supported by other uniformed officers who are alerted to the courtroom. The 45-year-old communist Günter Routhier is seriously injured in the resulting scuffles during the arrests. Routhier dies a few days later from the injuries he sustained during his arrest.
365. August 30. Perpetrator shot dead during robbery. During a robbery in Minden, a man shoots at a sales clerk and a police officer, who is injured. The officers then fire two shots at the man's upper body, who dies as a result of his injuries.
366 The Conference of Interior Ministers decides to introduce a new beige and green uniform nationwide. In some federal states, the conversion is to begin as early as 1976; in NRW, the planned start date is 1978.
367 Hans-Werner Hamacher is appointed head of the State Office of Criminal Investigation, replacing Mathias Eynck. Born in 1924, Hamacher joined the police force in 1945.
368th balance sheet on the use of firearms in 1974: North Rhine-Westphalian police officers fire shots in 242 cases this year. In 56 cases these are warning shots, 186 are targeted shots. There were 26 cases of personal injury and two fatal shootings. 106 times shots are fired to kill animals, 19 cases of firearms use are unjustified, 15 of which are shots fired at motor vehicles.
369 Emil Seeling retires as Inspector of Police. He is succeeded by Stefan Stillers (aged 54), who has worked in the Ministry of the Interior since 1967.
370 December: Enemies of the constitution in the police force: The Conference of Interior Ministers agrees that in future the federal states will inform each other about rejected anti-constitutional applicants for the civil service. This is to prevent the recruitment of an applicant who has already been rejected by the federal government or another federal state.

1975

371 At the end of November, the topping-out ceremony is held for the shell of the new accommodation buildings in BPA I in Selm-Bork. Once completed, the site will provide state-of-the-art living and working space for 1,200 young police officers.
372. March 23. Police officer shot dead in exchange of fire. Police chief Werner Fröhlich, who was on civilian patrol on the night of March 22-23, was called to a shopping center in Herzogenrath-Kohlscheid together with his patrol colleague, where a burglar had set off an alarm. When the two officers reach the scene and Fröhlich enters the shopping center with an employee, he sees a man behind a forklift truck who immediately shoots at him with a submachine gun. Although Fröhlich shoots back and injures the perpetrator, he is able to flee the scene. Werner Fröhlich collapses badly injured after the shooting. He dies of his injuries in hospital a week later, on March 31.
373. May 9. In Cologne, the 22-year-old police sergeant Walter Pauli is shot dead during a check. The incident occurs when the crews of two radio patrol cars and a service dog handler's car arrive at an NSU Prinz car occupied by three men who had appeared suspicious to several citizens. Walter Pauli and his patrol colleague are the fourth vehicle to arrive at the scene, where a check of the occupants has already begun. As Pauli approaches the car, the co-driver of the NSU jumps out of the car and shoots him in the chest at close range. Pauli is still able to return fire. There is now an exchange of gunfire in which another 21-year-old police officer is shot in the stomach. The driver and co-driver of the NSU are also injured by gunfire. The latter dies - just like Walter Pauli - from the gunshot wounds. The driver of the car, who was also armed and wanted to fire at the officers, was stopped by the bite of a service dog. It later transpires that the three suspects were all members of the "June 2nd" terrorist movement.  The man shot dead by the police is the anarchist Werner Sauber.
374th demand for foreigners in the police force. TV investigator Eduard Zimmermann (Aktenzeichen XY ungelöst) calls for foreigners to be allowed to join the German police force. A new level has crept into the crime scene almost unnoticed: "The level of foreigners who live in an isolated, independent world of which the German police know and understand very little. They are almost always dependent on interpreters and have little access to the peculiarities of foreigners. Where foreigners appear in the crime scene, this lack of knowledge acts like a layer of insulation that prevents even the slow leakage of important information."
375. June 4. The term of office of Interior Minister Willi Weyer (FDP) ends. His successor is Burkhard Hirsch (FDP). Born in 1930, Hirsch becomes a member of the LPD in 1948 and finally joins the FDP in 1949. After studying law and gaining his doctorate, he initially worked as a government assessor in Düsseldorf. After serving as a councillor in Düsseldorf, he worked from 1967 to 1971 as legal advisor to Walzkontor GmbH in Rheinhausen, as a member of the Bundestag and, from 1973, as director of Mannesmann AG in Düsseldorf. From 1975 to 1980 he was Minister of the Interior of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and from 1980 a member of the Bundestag.
376 The Conference of Interior Ministers decides to introduce uniform sleeve badges, police stars, uniform buttons and cap ribbons on uniforms for all federal states.
377 New recruits: North Rhine-Westphalia recruits 2,359 new police constables. This is the highest number of new recruits since the state was founded.
378. North Rhine-Westphalia invests more than DM 1.8 million for the nationwide introduction of the emergency number 110. This amount only includes the one-off installation in the authorities. In addition, 3.2 million is to be paid annually to the German Federal Post Office.
379 In 1975, the police helicopter squadrons "Rhineland" and "Westphalia" have a total of 33 employees, including 28 flight personnel. Six Alouette Astazou, 2 Gazelle and 1 Alouette III helicopters are available.
380 The Conference of Interior Ministers agrees on a joint draft model law for a uniform police law, which all state police laws will largely be based on in the following years.
381 The "Carl Severing" State Police School in Münster becomes the Higher State Police School.
382 The recruitment and selection service is placed under the management of the riot police in Bork.
383 Karl-Heinz Paterak becomes head of the "Carl Severing" Higher State Police School (HLPS). He had already been deputy to the then principal since 1969.  Paterak succeeds Rudolf Klotz, who retires.
384 Renaming of the police district commissioner to "First Chief Police Commissioner".
385. October 19. Police officer dies on railroad tracks. Three weeks after completing his training, Police Chief Constable Michael Reckels, Düsseldorf Police, dies in pursuit of car thieves. Reckels, who was pursuing the suspects over the railroad tracks, apparently overheard the approach of a locomotive due to the noise of a nearby highway. He is run over and dies.
386 Police density is very unevenly distributed in North Rhine-Westphalia. While the Düsseldorf district police department has the most favorable ratio of 1:377 (1 police officer for every 377 citizens), the situation is particularly bad in the Neuss district police department. Here the ratio is 1:1072.
387 Doubts arise about the reliability of the Alcotest tubes. In just under 18% of all cases in which the tubes turned dark green after a test, i.e. indicated an alcohol level of 0.8 per mille or more, the subsequent blood sample results were below 0.8 per mille. Tests with two new, physically based electronic measuring devices at the Düsseldorf police department have produced more reliable results than the test tubes.
388. December 5. The Conference of Interior Ministers adopts Police Service Regulation 100 (PDV 100) for all federal states. This set of rules defines management principles and operational procedures as well as basic police and tactical terms. It also describes measures to be taken, for example, in personal and property protection operations, disorderly demonstrations, robberies, explosives offenses, terrorist attacks and other types of operations.
389. severity of sanctions in the case of warning fines and social characteristics of those affected. In a scientific survey of 626 police officers on the subject of discretionary decisions regarding administrative offenses, the majority of respondents state that they are more likely to impose a fine on persons of higher status than on persons of lower status. This could disprove the widespread view of lower-class discrimination ("You hang the little ones, you let the big ones go"). In addition, the interviewees explained that harsher sanctions are imposed on rude but also intolerant persons than on friendly or tolerant ones and that women, especially younger ones, tend to be punished more severely than men. Dr. Steffen Hornthal, the police psychologist conducting the investigation, believes that it is possible that police officers may see a woman's politeness as a female ruse and therefore punish her more severely as a compensation.

1976

390 The "Chemical Mace", a tear gas in spray cans, is introduced by the North Rhine-Westphalian police. Tear gas has already been used in all federal states apart from Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia. A dispute breaks out in the state parliament about the possible cancer and allergy risks posed by the active ingredient chloroacetophenone.
392 The University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration begins its work. Instead of internal administrative training, an academic course of study is now offered to commissioner applicants. The college starts with 254 directly recruited police commissioner applicants. The training of police officers at the FHS does not start until the following year. In the current training year, uniformed officers are still being trained in accordance with the previous law up to the second professional examination. In addition to police officers, civil servants from state and local government as well as a small number of civil servants from social insurance institutions also study at the University of Applied Sciences. Locations where police officers are trained in a three-year course are Cologne, Wuppertal, Dortmund and Bielefeld.  Although almost 60% of the applicants for the university of applied sciences course this year were women, only 36% of the students are women. A large number of female applicants had misconceptions about the police profession.
393 A working group of the Conference of Interior Ministers is testing new, humane police weapons for their suitability for use by the German state police forces. However, none of the weapons, most of which originate from the USA, are deemed suitable for German purposes. One of the weapons tested was a Schermuly rifle, which uses rubber bullets to incapacitate ringleaders of disruptive groups without seriously injuring them. However, the rifle is declared useless due to its uncontrolled dispersion. Also considered unsuitable are a Remington pump shotgun that fires plastic shot, a shooting stick that can fire various types of ammunition, a rifle with dart ammunition, a "photic driver" light thrower that is supposed to cause temporary dysfunction in the human brain, anesthetic dart guns, an evidence color pistol that is supposed to color-code fleeing persons and vehicles, a baton with a built-in pepper spray device and various irritant devices.
394 According to a nationwide study by the University of Saarbrücken on the job satisfaction of police officers, the following picture emerges: 34% of officers in NRW are satisfied with their job, 40% are somewhat satisfied, 21% are somewhat dissatisfied and 6% are not satisfied. This means that the job satisfaction of police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia is significantly below the national average. The proportion of "satisfied" officers is the lowest in comparison with the other federal states.
395. March 29. Terrorist explosives attack. An explosive device detonates in the offices of the Otto Wolff company in Düsseldorf. Considerable material damage is caused. The Swedish consulate is located in the same building. The crime was obviously carried out by left-wing terrorists.
396 Since the perpetrators of economic crimes are increasingly working with ADV storage and computing systems and evidence-relevant data is stored on these systems, the State School of Criminal Investigation now introduces two-week training courses for white-collar crime clerks. Basic knowledge about the structure, organization and functioning of ADP systems is taught. The first course participants describe dealing with this new subject matter as extremely strenuous.
397. April 4. In the Grugahalle in Essen, the police music corps from Dortmund, Cologne and Essen and the Luftwaffe Music Corps III from Münster, under the overall direction of Police Chief Inspector Günter Eggert, captivate 7,452 spectators. The demand for tickets is so great that many music lovers have to be turned away.
398th police officers as Olympic participants. Police constable Claus Marek, Wuppertal riot police, and police sergeant Rudolf Rauer, Selm riot police, take part in the Olympic Games in Montreal. While Marek achieved 10th place as a decathlete, Rauer achieved 4th place as a goalkeeper with the national indoor handball team.
399 In a large-scale inspection by six district police authorities (Gelsenkirchen, Cologne, Neuß, Gütersloh, Mettmann and Olpe), it is found that 56% of drivers have complied with the seatbelt requirement that has been in force since the beginning of the year. When asked about their reasons for not wearing a seatbelt, 29% of drivers without a seatbelt said that they had forgotten to buckle up, 23% said that it was annoying, 21% said that the seatbelt was restricting them. 8% thought the regulation was inappropriate, 5% said they were unaware of it and 14% gave other reasons for not wearing a seatbelt.
400th North Rhine-Westphalian police officer fails to win a medal at the 4th European Police Forest Running Championships in Ostend, Belgium. The best NRW runner is Dieter Brand in 8th place. Police officers from seven European countries take part in the event.
401. November 3. Kidnapping. In Münster, the well-known show jumper and heir to the RATIO wholesale chain Hendrik Snoek is kidnapped from his bed at home by two armed men. The perpetrators chain Snoek up in a dark shaft of a highway bridge near Herborn. A ransom of 5 million marks is paid for Snoek. However, he is only freed by chance. He is discovered through notes that he throws out of his hiding place and is freed. Snoek's kidnappers, 39-year-old Reinhardt Szameitat and 37-year-old Peter Graef, were arrested in Düsseldorf in February 1977. While Szameitat commits suicide in Münster prison, Graef is sentenced to 13 years in prison.
402. November 19. Death during a pursuit. Police officer Dietmar Konopek, Bochum police station, dies in a serious traffic accident during a pursuit. The 31-year-old father of a family dies of his serious injuries the following day.
403 The compulsory wearing of helmets by motorcyclists is introduced. However, it takes another four years before violations of the regulation can be punished with a fine. Police motorcyclists have been equipped with (half-shell) helmets since the early 1960s.
404 The riot police in Linnich are equipped with a state-of-the-art shooting range at a cost of DM 2.8 million. It has a 25 m long firing range with 24 stands. A 200 m long indoor shooting range with five stands is also to be added by 1977. This will cost a further 3.7 million euros. Both the young riot police and officers from the surrounding district police authorities can hold shooting practice sessions at this facility.

1977

January 405: Advisory groups for hostage-taking and kidnapping cases are set up at the State Office of Criminal Investigation and the Police Telecommunications Service. The officers in these groups are to analyze specific cases, develop criteria for dealing with such cases and advise the police authorities concerned in the event of an incident.
406. September 24. A large demonstration of 30,000 people takes place in Kalkar against the construction of the nuclear power plant there. Almost 8,000 police officers from North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse, Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate and the Federal Border Police take part in the police operation, which does not result in any major riots. The BGS is deployed with eight transport helicopters, among other things, which are used to bring entire hundred-strong teams into the area. Several ready-to-use Molotov cocktails, 170 containers of chemicals, 44 axes and various gas pistols, air rifles and similar items are seized from demonstrators who are turned back at the borders of the operation area or are already in the operation area.
407 The police are given a new uniform. The uniforms with beige-brown trousers and a green uniform jacket are first introduced in Düsseldorf in July 1977, followed two months later by Cologne. The new outfit is to be introduced in all district police authorities by the end of 1978.
408 North Rhine-Westphalia has 672 female police officers.
409 In 1977, the following requirements apply for recruitment to the North Rhine-Westphalian police force: For the intermediate service, a minimum age of 17 years applies for secondary school pupils; secondary school pupils can start at the age of 16. After successfully passing the examination, they are taken on as police constables. Secondary school pupils are given the opportunity to obtain a secondary school leaving certificate in a six-month course before starting the actual specialist training. The maximum age limit for civil servants wishing to advance from the intermediate to the higher service is 30 years, and 35 years for advancement from the higher to the higher service. There is no longer any direct recruitment to the middle grade of the criminal investigation department. This is now only made up of officers who join the criminal investigation department from the security police as a change of branch. However, up to the age of 30, it is possible to be recruited directly into the upper grade of the criminal investigation department.
410 The state police school for service dog handlers is relocated from Selm to Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock.
411. September 5. Schleyer kidnapping. The employer president Dr. Hanns-Martin Schleyer is kidnapped by members of the RAF and later murdered. During his abduction in Cologne, three police officers from his escort squad are shot dead.  Schleyer, who was on his way home, was traveling in a convoy of two vehicles at 5.25 p.m. when a baby carriage was pushed onto the road from the sidewalk. When the vehicle in front braked hard, the escort car, occupied by three police officers, police chief Reinhold Brändle (41 years old), police master Roland Pieler (20 years old) and police chief constable Helmut Ulmer, hit the car with Schleyer and his driver Heinz Marcisz (41 years old). Immediately afterwards, five people run to the vehicles and shoot at the police officers and the driver with submachine guns, all of whom die on the spot from gunshot wounds. Schleyer is dragged out of the vehicle and taken into a VW bus, in which the perpetrators flee with their victim. After several days of negotiations between the kidnappers and the German government, Schleyer is finally found murdered in the trunk of a vehicle in France.

1978

412 The police budget for 1978 provides for around 38,800 posts, an increase of more than 1,200 on the previous year. Around 5,300 of these posts are in the country's criminal investigation department. Almost 1.7 billion marks have been earmarked for the entire police budget in NRW for this year. 1.3 billion of this is for personnel costs. 89 million marks have been budgeted for building measures and the acquisition of developed land. 151 new police cars, including three armored patrol cars, are to be purchased for 2.8 million marks. The budget for automatic data processing equipment is increased to 15.2 million marks. Among other things, the number of data stations, including mobile stations, in the country is to be increased to 143.
413 In Duisburg, the association "Frauen helfen Frauen" opens the first women's shelter in the Ruhr area. The house is subsequently repeatedly used by the police to house women and their children after domestic violence.
February 414: In the wake of the activities of the Red Army faction, the Bundestag passes a package of anti-terror laws. Among other things, Section 111 of the Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that the police may set up checkpoints and check people at a large number of locations if they suspect that a terrorist act has been committed.
415 The purchase of two BO 105 helicopters marks the beginning of a new era for the NRW police. By November 1980, long versions of the BO 105 are also purchased in the form of five BO 105 CBS machines.
416 An investigation into unintentional shootings by police officers for the years 1966 - 1977 reveals that 116 unintentional shootings occurred during this period. There were 4 fatalities, 14 serious injuries and 33 minor to moderate injuries. In almost all cases, the shots were fired due to handling errors. Technical failure of the weapons could only be proven in six cases.
417. deficiencies in the riot police: The magazine "Spiegel" reports from a secret document of the inspector of the riot police that the condition of the riot police squads is poor. Only 15 of the 30 North Rhine-Westphalian riot squads are fully or partially operational. Despite high demand due to terrorism, violent demonstrations, natural disasters and being used "in droves" for television programs such as "Tatort", the police only have inadequate equipment. For example, the NRW hundredths alone lacked 2,000 batons, handcuffs, flashlights and NBC protective masks, as well as 900 submachine guns, 1,350 tear gas launchers, 465 irritant sprayers and 1,500 protective shields with long batons. According to the secret document, the director of the riot police, Dr. Hans Bröcker, also criticized the organization of the equipment procurement as inappropriate and time-consuming.
418. September 24. Firefight between police and RAF terrorists: In a forest in the Dortmund district of Löttringhausen, RAF terrorists Michael Knoll, Werner Lotze and Angelika Speitel are surprised by a patrol car crew during target practice. A firefight ensues between the two police officers and the terrorists, in which 26-year-old police officer Hans-Wilhelm Hansen and terrorist Knoll die. The second officer and Angelika Speitel remain seriously injured at the scene, Lotze manages to escape.
419. June 4. Two officers, police chief officers Reiner Kittendorf (35 years old) and Günther Mattner (39 years old), are killed when an Alouette III police helicopter of the Westphalia squadron (Dortmund) crashes after being struck by lightning.
420: The NRW police introduce a new P6 service pistol manufactured by SIG SAUER. The new weapon replaces the previously used Walther PPK.
421: The "Erich Klausener" state police school in Stukenbrock becomes Riot Police Division VII.
422 November: Due to the high terrorist threat, an armored patrol vehicle of the Shorland MK 3 type - similar to a large off-road vehicle with small windows and a turret - is purchased for the property protection service in Bonn. With a fuel consumption of 40 l per 100 km and a turning circle of 17 m, the vehicle is proving to be of little practical use, so that no further vehicles are purchased.
423 The NRW police train cadaver sniffer dogs for the first time. The animals are able to detect the smell of corpses just one day after the death of a person. The corpse of an adult human being can be detected in the decomposition stage from one week to one year under a normal grave up to a depth of 1.5 meters. The dogs can also smell corpses through thin-walled concrete and bricks. They can be used for 15 to 30 minutes at a time until they become exhausted.

1979

424 The number of cases of police use of firearms in NRW has fallen from 306 to 239 since 1977.  A total of 13 criminals are injured and one killed by police use of firearms in 1979. In three cases, police officers were killed by lawbreakers, in 18 other cases an attempt was made.
425. 209 times irritant spraying devices (RSG) are used in NRW. Causes for the use of RSG included physical attacks with bare hands (212 cases), attacks with knives or hatchets (34), use of weapons (30), attacks by dogs (7) or suicide attempts (12)
425a.  January 26. Shot dead on duty: During an arrest, police sergeant Reinhold Obensiek is shot dead with a muzzle-loading pistol by one of the two surprised perpetrators after a burglary in a pub in Minden. The two young burglars were at the scene of the crime to steal weapons from a shooting club. POM Obensiek, father of a child, was 25 years old.
426. July 10. Police officers killed. In Arnsberg, police officers Bernd Korb, 27, and Michael Gödde, 26, are shot dead by an 18-year-old Belgian professional soldier.  The last radio announcement coming from the two officers' patrol car was: "Blue lights on, follow jeep. Vehicle captured". Immediately afterwards, the two officers are killed by a volley fired at them by the soldier. A cab driver finds them lying in the street a few moments later, shot in the stomach. Meanwhile, the gunman is being pursued by a civilian patrol from Soest. When the officers fire a shot, he is seriously injured by a bullet through the lung.
427. September 12. The hijacking of a Lufthansa plane ends at Cologne-Bonn Airport, where the perpetrator had taken control of 119 passengers and the crew. After negotiations, the perpetrator had initially released all the passengers and some of the crew, and finally the remaining crew members, before surrendering to the police.
428. health situation in the police service: A representative study by the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Accident Research shows that 63% of all police officers feel so exhausted after duty that they can no longer get up for any activities. Only 45% of those surveyed stated that they had a good night's sleep. Of those on night duty over the age of 45, only 33% were able to sleep well. Two thirds of officers on night duty stated that they were unable to sleep undisturbed during the day due to traffic noise and household noises. 49% of police officers complain of back pain, 41% of stomach and abdominal pain, 29% of headaches and 29% of heart complaints. This puts police officers above the average for other employees.
429 Düsseldorf police officer Klaus Balkenhol becomes German champion at the German Dressage Championships on his service horse "Rabauke".
430th Balance sheet of the waterway police: The waterway police register around 204,000 ship movements on the Rhine in 1979. The officers have to attend 391 shipping accidents on all waterways. 10 people are killed in 74 accidents involving pleasure craft. 260 criminal charges for water pollution have to be filed. The WSP's criminal investigators deal with 1,240 criminal offenses throughout the year. The officers have to deal with 174 "corpse cases". There were 113 cases of suicide.
431. alcotest tubes unreliable: In 18% of all cases, the maximum green coloration of Alcotest tubes, which drivers have to blow into during checks, shows a blood alcohol level below 0.8 per mille, although the most intensive green coloration should only occur at a minimum of 0.8 per mille. This is the result of an answer from the Minister of the Interior to a minor question from two SPD members of the state parliament.

Figure 5: "Red Dot" campaign in 1971: citizens demonstrate in Essen against public transport fare increases (Source: Klaus Brück)

The 80s                                   

The most drastic change experienced by the North Rhine-Westphalian police force is probably taken for granted today, but in the 1980s it was perceived as a revolution both inside and outside the police force: The male bastion "police" was stormed by women in 1982. Even the path to this event was accompanied by heated discussions within the police force. For many police officers, especially those who had experienced their police socialization during the Third Reich or shortly afterwards, it seemed inconceivable that women could fully exercise the police profession. The defensive reflexes against "colleagues in skirts" are correspondingly strong in many places. It will take until the end of the decade for women in uniform to appear on the streets in significant numbers and prove that women are not inferior police officers. However, the social structure of the police force is not only being changed by the increase in the number of women, but also by the fact that by the mid-1980s, two thirds of all police officers already had a vocational baccalaureate or high school diploma. One police operation towers above all others in NRW in this decade: The Gladbeck hostage-taking. Over the course of several days, two serious criminals managed to give the police a public image of helplessness like never before by taking hostages, hijacking a bus and killing two hostages. The police draw far-reaching consequences from the disaster of this operation, in which unrestrained members of the press accompanying the two criminals also make a nasty impression. Comprehensive operational plans - so-called "special organizational structures" - are developed to provide police officers with clear guidelines for action in similar cases in the future. The Pope's visit to several cities in the Ruhr region is another operation that receives a great deal of media coverage and poses major challenges for the NRW police. The squatter scene, which has spilled over from Berlin into major NRW cities such as Cologne, also ties up police manpower and is an expression of social protest.

1980

432nd Rocker problem. In a small parliamentary question, the Ministry of the Interior is asked for its opinion on the situation surrounding rocker groups in NRW. The reason for the question is the rioting of rockers in public. The Ministry of the Interior explains that rockers are not a particular problem in NRW, either in terms of their numbers or their activities. They are mostly groups of 20 - 30 people aged between 14 and 30. The police had to intervene in 52 cases against rocker groups between 1976 and 1980. However, the situations were manageable, so that there was no reason for special programs against rockers. Essentially, the youth welfare offices took care of those affected.
433. the establishment of PHW hundred units means that training and deployment are completely separated.
434. high-speed training for special task forces. A decree stipulates that the Higher State Police School is to train around 400 SEK and MEK officers in driving at high speeds with immediate effect. At Cologne-Bonn Airport and the Nürburgring, the officers are now practicing how to deal with extreme cornering, swerving vehicles and emergency braking. The original plan to complete the exercises with 30 old vehicles that have been written off has been scrapped. The officers now have to travel in their departments' own vehicles.
435. March 12. The new Police Act is passed. In addition to the powers to intervene in dangerous situations, it now also contains regulations on the use of direct coercion. The question of the conditions under which a final (fatal) rescue shot may be fired against dangerous persons remains unregulated despite previous heated parliamentary debate. In future, machine guns and hand grenades will no longer be considered police weapons.
436. April 1. From now on, moped riders born after March 31, 1965 must present a theoretical test certificate at police checks. Previously, anyone who had reached the age of 15 was automatically allowed to drive a moped.
437. April 3. Fatal shot at car driver. During a traffic check in Neuss, a VW bus carrying three people is stopped at a police checkpoint at around 1.00 pm. A 33-year-old police officer fires a shot from his submachine gun at the driver as the vehicle rolls up. The 43-year-old driver, head of an acoustics company in Essen, is fatally shot in the face behind his steering wheel. The bullet pierced his spine. During the subsequent investigation, it cannot be determined whether the officer fired the shot intentionally or unintentionally.
438. April 15. Death in the line of duty. When four officers from the Bergisch Gladbach criminal investigation department visit the apartment of a suspect to execute a search warrant, they encounter the owner of the apartment, who immediately flees. As he flees, he shoots at the officers from a distance of about ten meters, who immediately throw themselves to the ground. Detective chief Günter Müller is hit twice in the process. The father of two sons died of his injuries shortly afterwards. Two weeks later, the perpetrator kills himself with his firearm.
439th In North Rhine-Westphalia, there are 281 cases of police use of firearms. Three people are killed and 15 are injured.
440. June 4. Dr. Herbert Schnoor replaces Interior Minister Burkhard Hirsch (FDP). Herbert Schnoor is born on 1.6.27 in Aurich, East Frisia. Like many of his predecessors, he is a lawyer. Between 1964 and 1975, he worked in various state ministries. In 1980, he was appointed Minister of the Interior. He held this office for 15 years and was also Deputy Prime Minister from 1988 to 1995. After leaving office, Schnoor continues to work as a lawyer.
441. June 5. There is a fatal shooting in Herford. After a 50-year-old burglar fires two shots at the police officers called to the scene, they return fire and hit the man, who dies. The burglar's weapon subsequently turns out to be a blank-firing pistol.
442. July 1. Environmental protection as a police task. The 18th Criminal Law Amendment Act and the newly created Sections 324 et seq. of the German Criminal Code (StGB) mean that the police are now also responsible for prosecuting environmental pollution. However, the new, complicated regulations lack clarity as to the facts of the case, as they are too closely linked to administrative law regulations.
443 The Cologne police have uniformed officers patrolling the city's streetcars due to a high incidence of various crimes. Passengers' papers and luggage are checked in order to catch criminals, robbers, thugs and thieves.
444. armored patrol cars are tested for the property protection service. These are Mercedes off-road vehicles of the type DB 280 GE. The body is made of armored steel and armored safety glass. The engine, drive and fuel tank are specially protected. A top speed of 155 km/h is achieved with the 156 hp engines. The vehicles are significantly more maneuverable than a foreign model, of which only one was purchased due to its lack of practical suitability. Initially, five of the Mercedes armored cars are to be purchased to patrol Cologne, Bonn and Düsseldorf.
445. June 19. A new patrol boat "WSP 11" is put into service with the water police. The new boat, which replaces its predecessor built in 1952, is equipped with radar, echo sounder, ship-to-ship radio and police radio and is explosion-proof. It can therefore also enter areas where there is an explosive gas-air mixture. Two diesel engines, each with 240 hp, enable it to travel at speeds of up to 45 km/h. After its commissioning, the boat will be deployed at the Wesel WSP station.
446. October 1. The "State Police School for Technology and Traffic" in Essen is discontinued in its previous function. It no longer offers technical training in motor vehicles, telecommunications or weapons. As the Essen facility is now only used to train young police officers, it is renamed the "North Rhine-Westphalia Riot Police Essen Department".  
447. October 1. Alternative fuel in patrol cars. Ten patrol cars - five in Essen and five in Cologne - now run on a mixture of methanol and petrol. The new technology is being used as part of a research program by the Technical University of Berlin and the VW plant in Wolfsburg to explore alternative fuels.
448. October 3. Fatal shooting. In Aachen, 19-year-old Detlef Moysiszik is fatally shot by police projectiles. He was encountered by police during a robbery at a jewelry store. The officers were allegedly informed before the crime by an accomplice that the crime was imminent and should also have been aware that Moysiszik was only carrying a gas pistol. The officer who fired the fatal shots was later acquitted in court.
449th police building measures: Police building measures are financed at a cost of 88 million marks in 1980. The completion of police accommodation in Selm/Bork, the construction of the new police headquarters in Aachen, the modernization of riot police department IV in Linnich, the construction of the new Bielefeld headquarters and the renovation and conversion of the Düsseldorf headquarters, among other things, involve considerable financial expenditure.
450 Turkish for police officers. Police officers in districts with a high proportion of Turkish residents are given the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the culture, religion and mentality of Turks in one-week seminars. The aim is to improve communication between citizens and police officers and to gain a better understanding of their foreign fellow citizens. After a short time, 300 officers have already taken part in the seminars. In a second step, officers who are interested will be taught Turkish in small groups for four weeks. There are still 100 civil servants available for this. In the following period, the Ministry of the Interior also offers a Turkish correspondence course to "keep the language skills warm".
451 At the same time as the inauguration of the new operations control center at the Düsseldorf Police Department, Interior Minister Dr. Schnoor introduces the new operations control system CEBI (computer-aided operations control, processing and information). With CEBI, there is now a database with which operations can be processed and supported with digital information such as property data for banks, schools, consulates, etc. The times when operations were processed using notes, forms and files are now a thing of the past.
452nd Police Sportsman of the Year is Police Master Günter Neubert from the Neuss Police Headquarters. Neubert had achieved first place five times at the German police swimming championships in 1980: 100 m backstroke, 200 m medley, 1,500 m freestyle, 4 x 100 m medley and 10 x 50 m freestyle.

1981

453rd police cost-cutting measures: Due to the state's tight budget situation, cost-cutting measures also have to be implemented in the police force. Until April, only 40 kilometers are covered per shift and patrol car. This is a particular problem in large authorities in rural areas. 51 out of 650 training courses will be canceled during this period. Four authorities, Essen, Neuss, Gummersbach and Heinsberg, are also restricting firearms training due to the officers' long journeys.
454. January 1. Erich Sieg is appointed the new inspector of the North Rhine-Westphalian police force. He replaces the previous incumbent, Stefan Stillers, who retires. Stillers dies four years later, on March 19, 1984, and is buried in his home town of Wanne-Eickel.
455. January 23. Use of firearms with fatal outcome. In Düsseldorf, two investigators come across 32-year-old Wilfried Köhler, whom they are looking for after he has not returned from a prison leave. Köhler, who was helping his wife move out of their apartment when the officers arrived, threatened to take his own life with a knife if he was arrested. When the officers use irritant gas against him, Köhler runs away. This is when the fatal shots are fired. The officer who fired the shots is subsequently acquitted of the charge of involuntary manslaughter in court.
456 The police driver's license is abolished. The special provision in the Road Traffic Licensing Regulations (StVZO), which stipulates that police authorities and institutions may issue their own driving licenses for police officers, is repealed. Holders of police driving licenses receive a general driving license from the municipal authorities without having to undergo a new examination.  
457. January 28. Brokdorf demonstration with 100,000 participants
458th Discount for alternating shifts. From 1981, civil servants working alternating shifts are granted a reduction in working hours of up to four shifts off per year.
459. March 18. Death by machine gunshot. In Bielefeld, 30-year-old Hamburg printer Uwe Schecke is mistaken for a watch dealer by officers of a special task force. While attempting to arrest Schecke, he is fatally shot with a police submachine gun. The officer in charge explained that he had slipped during the arrest and that the shot had been fired accidentally. The public prosecutor's office classifies the incident as a "tragic accident", so there are no legal proceedings against the police officer.
April 460. Psychology as a subject in training. In future, the subject of psychology is to be taught as part of the training for the intermediate service in order to equip police trainees for incidents in particular. There are no plans to employ qualified psychologists to teach the subject. Instead, the Riot Police Directorate is conducting a four-week training seminar to train senior officers as psychology teachers. The first seminar is completed in April.
461. September 5. Two police officers shot dead. Police sergeant Manfred Waßer and police chief constable Michael Branzke, Iserlohn police, are shot through the closed door by 27-year-old student Michael Hanke. The perpetrator had suspected his father outside the door. Michael Branzke had just been transferred to patrol duty at the end of his training.
462. September 10. Helicopter crash. While landing near Lichtenau-Henglarn, a helicopter from the "Rheinland" air squadron hits a tree with a rotor blade. The co-pilot and three SEK officers, who had been transported in the helicopter, were able to escape from the vehicle, some of them seriously injured. The pilot, Police Chief Superintendent Rolf Kegel, died in the helicopter, which caught fire within seconds.
463 Applicants and school education. In NRW, around 14,000 to 16,000 young people apply to join the police every year. Between 2,000 and 2,100 of these are accepted. In 1981, 80% of the trainees had the intermediate school leaving certificate, 10% the Abitur and 10% the Hauptschulabschluss.
464. September 12. Death after use of firearms. In Troisdorf, a 53-year-old allotment gardener dies after a police officer wanted to "check on things" in the allotment garden area. The allotment gardener succumbs to his injuries in hospital with five gunshot wounds. According to the shooter, the man who was killed had ordered him off the plot. The gardener had threatened him, which could only be resolved by the use of firearms. The case against the officer is dropped as there are no witnesses to the incident other than him.
465 August 31. State Director of Criminal Investigation Werner Haas, the highest-ranking criminal investigator in NRW, is retired by Interior Minister Dr. Schnoor. He is succeeded by Chief Criminal Director Hermann Hestermann (aged 57).
466 October 10: 300,000 demonstrators in Bonn call for the NATO Double-Track Decision to be withdrawn
467: The last of the four-seater Alouette II police helicopters, which had been purchased since 1964, are taken out of service. The machines had 530 hp (390 kW), consumed 120 liters of fuel per hour and could fly for a maximum of 4:15 hours at a cruising speed of 155 km/h.
468 The previous Walther PPK 7.65 caliber police pistol is replaced by a SIG-Sauer model with 9mm ammunition. The previous weapon had proved to be unsuitable for police use due to its low bullet energy.
469. October 26. Use of firearms resulting in death. In Erkelenz, police officers fired a shot at 43-year-old René Douglas. Douglas had tried to elude the police after being found by officers as part of a manhunt. He dies in hospital from his gunshot wounds.
470 The third youth traffic school is set up in Essen. By 1980, 261,000 children have been prepared for their cycling test by the Essen police.
471 The last police machine guns and hand grenades are abolished.
472. December 18. The 8-year-old schoolgirl Nina von Gallwitz is abducted in Cologne. At the parents' request, the police initially refrain from a public manhunt so as not to jeopardize the parents' negotiations with the kidnappers, who are demanding a high ransom. After a ransom of 1.5 million marks was paid, the child, in whose survival hardly anyone still believed at this point, was released by the kidnappers on May 15, 1982 at the Ohligserheide freeway service area in Solingen on the Autobahn 3.
473 In 1981, North Rhine-Westphalia had 208 police-owned sports facilities (not including rented facilities): 15 sports halls, 12 judo halls, 83 fitness rooms, 4 indoor swimming pools, 10 sports fields, 11 small playing fields, 1 indoor shooting range with 200 m lanes, 3 indoor shooting ranges with 100 m lanes, 55 indoor shooting ranges, 1 open shooting range, 8 indoor riding halls and 5 riding arenas.

1982

474. January 8. The 25-year-old police master Heinrich Hasenkamp is shot dead by a robber in Coesfeld.
475. 74 women begin their training as police chief constable candidates (PHW-Ain) in the NW riot police directorate for the first time.  North Rhine-Westphalia is by no means the first federal state to recruit women into the riot police. Between 1978 and 1982, Berlin, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Hesse already made this possible.
476. formation of negotiating groups in Düsseldorf and Cologne
477. 12 January. The new Police Organization Act regulates changes in the division of the North Rhine-Westphalian police. Two district police authorities, the Iserlohn police office and the Neuss police directorate are dissolved. The city of Castrop-Rauxel is transferred from the Dortmund police to the Recklinghausen police. The supervision of road traffic on federal and country roads is transferred from the regional presidents to the local district police authorities.
April 478, 9. The Duisburg mass murderer and cannibal Joachim Kroll (48 years old) is sentenced to life imprisonment for eight murders and one attempted murder at the Duisburg Regional Court.  Between 1955 and 1976, Kroll had taken control of women and children in particular, killing, dismembering and in some cases eating them. When the Duisburg police arrived at his apartment in 1976 in search of a missing little girl, the officers found the child's feet and hands in a pot of soup. Kroll admits to the police to twelve murders in Lüdinghausen, Kirchhellen, Rheinhausen, Essen, Burscheid, Duisburg, Marl, Wuppertal, Hückeswagen and Voerde.  He retracts part of his confession before he is sentenced.
479 Dr. Werner Ruckriegel becomes the new head of the police department in the Ministry of the Interior. The 54-year-old lawyer had previously worked in the Ministry of the Interior and was largely responsible for drafting the Data Protection Act.
480. June 8. Police officers often do not wear seat belts: In a letter to all police stations, Interior Minister Schnoor points out that not only citizens, but also all police officers in a motor vehicle must wear their seat belts while driving. The rate at which the police wear seat belts leaves a lot to be desired, although police officers should set an example here. They must fasten their seat belts in all cases where there are no urgent reasons not to do so. As a rule, however, there are no such reasons.
481. August 21. A perpetrator armed with a submachine gun who takes three hostages in a bank in Wuppertal is shot dead by one of the hostages, a police officer. The man killed is a 36-year-old law enforcement officer.
482. November 12. Squatting. In Bochum, the "BO-Fabrik Cultural Center" set up in a squatted factory building is evicted by the police.
December 483: Police scandal in Dortmund. Eleven of 14 officers from a task force to combat street crime in the West police district are taken into custody. They are suspected of having committed numerous crimes while on duty: Theft, embezzlement, embezzlement, obstruction of justice and coercion. The public prosecutor's office later announced that 17 other officers were also under investigation for theft. If there had been fresh burglaries in stores, the accused officers are said to have stolen further valuables from the stores concerned. Liquor, color televisions, clothing, cigarettes and much more are said to have changed hands.
484. December 3. UFO operation. After the words "Unknown flying object landed in Duisburg" are shown in the ZDF crime comedy "Kottan im Einsatz" as a dramaturgical gag, the Duisburg police's wires are burning hot. Numerous frightened callers, who have taken the advertisement at face value, want information from the officers about the incident.
December 485: The Conference of Interior Ministers decides that the riot police of the federal states are to be equipped with a new rifle (G8 / G8 A1) from 1983. This is a further development of the G1 and G3 rifles previously in use. The new weapon is better suited to typical police situations. It allows both single fire and bursts of fire, which can be limited to three shots. A long sighting line and the possibility of mounting telescopic sights and secondary sights increase the accuracy.

1983

486. January 6. Fatal shooting. During an operation to rob a bank in Cologne, the perpetrator is shot dead by the police. During an exchange of fire with the armed man, an officer is shot through the hand.
487 Establishment of the Coordination Office (KOST) MEK at the LKA.
488. March 18. Use of firearms resulting in death. In Neuss, 62-year-old Florian Wilck is shot dead by a plainclothes police patrol. The man, who was considered mentally disturbed, had confronted the officers with a rifle, which later turned out to be a BB gun.
489. June 4. Death in a gunfight. In Oberhausen, two wanted men who had barricaded themselves in an apartment and officers from a special task force exchanged shots, killing a 30-year-old perpetrator. An officer of the SEK is shot in the neck during the firefight.
490. June 29. Burglar killed. After a burglary, a 33-year-old suspect jumps out of a window in Castrop-Rauxel. A deployed officer feels threatened by an object the man is holding in his hand and shoots the man.
491. August 7. Burglar shot dead. In Bergisch Gladbach, police officers are deployed to a burglary in a villa. When the suspect attacks an officer with a crowbar, the officer shoots him. The burglar dies from his injuries.
492. August 25. Fatal shots fired during an operation. In Düsseldorf, the police receive a report of a masked man with a knife in the courtyard of a student hall of residence. The officers on plainclothes patrol shoot the man, a 22-year-old student, as he tries to escape.
493. August 25. CID officer shoots young man. In Cologne-Wesseling, a cyclist riding in serpentine lines approaches a police officer who is traveling in his private car with a private weapon. When there is a confrontation between the two men, the officer makes use of his firearm. His adversary, 26-year-old Gerhardt Freund, dies of his injuries.
494 The so-called "census ruling" brings about far-reaching changes in the processing of personal data, including for the police. In the Federal Constitutional Court ruling from December 1983, the "informational self-determination" of people is regarded as a value of fundamental rights. Numerous regulations limiting the processing of personal data by the police are subsequently incorporated into both the Code of Criminal Procedure and the police laws and fundamentally change police work.
495 Covert investigations: Interior Minister Schnoor makes it clear that he will not tolerate criminal activities by police officers, even for undercover investigations. "If crimes can only be solved using secret service methods or even by participating in crimes, then our police are ruled out for this work. No superior in NRW has the right to give a police officer an assignment that involves the officer in criminal activities."
496. October 22. As part of the peace movement's week of action against nuclear armament in East and West and against the deployment of American medium-range missiles, 500,000 people take to the streets in Bonn. A twelve-kilometer-long human chain is formed around the government district. The protests are peaceful. The police estimate a significantly lower number of participants (190,000) than the organizers.
497 A survey carried out by the police on the instructions of Interior Minister Schnoor shows that despite the existing obligation to wear seat belts, only 49% of drivers and 50% of passengers in motor vehicles still wear seat belts. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is now planning to impose fines for violations of the obligation to wear seat belts.
498. November 21. In Bonn, around 3,000 people demonstrate against NATO's decision to retrofit and the planned stationing of American Pershing and cruise missile missiles in Germany. The police arrest 164 people after several hundred demonstrators try to break through the cordon around the Bundeshaus and use water cannons during the demonstration.
499. In 1983, there are numerous demonstrations by the peace movement in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as in other federal states, some with several hundred thousand participants. Numerous hundreds of police are deployed. In Essen, around 5,000 schoolchildren form a long human chain in the city center on October 20 to demonstrate against the planned missile deployments.  Interior Minister Schnoor had already ordered in September that at least 2,000 police officers be trained in view of the expected large demonstrations, so that they are familiar with the arguments of the peace movement and are not completely unprepared when they encounter well-informed demonstrators.
500th Prime Minister Johannes Rau honors Police Chief Superintendent Gerhard Schmid and Police Chief Werner Elsner, pilots of the "Rheinland" helicopter squadron, with the NRW Rescue Medal in Düsseldorf. The two officers had rescued five people from a burning Belgian cargo ship on the Rhine in Düsseldorf in 1981. While Elsner steered the helicopter over the burning section of the ship, Schmidt, standing on the skids of the machine, pulled two children, two women and a man into the cabin. The ship exploded shortly after the rescue operation.
501. school-leaving qualifications of new recruits: Of the 579 men and women recruited to the police force, 8% have a lower secondary school leaving certificate, 45% have an intermediate secondary school leaving certificate and 47% have the Abitur or Fachabitur. The proportion of police recruits with an Abitur or Fachabitur is therefore almost seven times higher than in 1970. 83% of the women recruited have the highest school-leaving qualifications.
502. December 1. Alfred Dietel becomes the new Inspector of Police. He had previously headed the "Deployment of the Police" department at the Ministry of the Interior.  Dietel succeeds Erich Sieg, who had held the post since 1981.
503. December 31. Change in the management of the riot police. At the end of 1983, the previous director of the riot police, Dr. Hans Bröcker, retires. Over 20,000 police trainees have been trained under his leadership. His successor is Dr. Kurt Gintzel, Senior Police Director. Born in Silesia in 1927, Gintzel joined the police force in 1947, studied law and obtained his doctorate in law in 1965. He most recently worked as head of the "protective police" department at the district president in Münster.
504 The state government creates the career requirements for the promotion of older police officers in the intermediate service to the higher service. The Higher State Police School is commissioned to design a four-month promotion course. The first of these courses will be held in 1985. The courses are not without controversy, as promotion to the higher service normally requires a three-year course of study at a university of applied sciences.

1984

505. January 2. City terminates police cooperation: With immediate effect, the police no longer receive vehicle owner information from the City of Dortmund after 4 p.m. Urgently needed investigations after office hours are therefore no longer possible. The background to this is a dispute between the city administration and the police. The city of Dortmund is demanding DM 200,000 from the police to cover the costs of owner inquiries outside office hours. The police refused to pay.
506. June 6. The NRW police deploy patrol cars with catalytic converters for the first time. The first 30 vehicles of the VW Passat type with a 1.8 liter engine and 92 hp are deployed in equal numbers at the Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Essen police stations. The catalytic converters are intended to reduce exhaust emissions by up to 90 %.
507. June 29. Change in the highest CID offices. Interior Minister Dr. Schnoor bids farewell to both the highest-ranking criminal investigator in NRW, State Director of Criminal Investigation Hermann Hestermann, and the head of the State Office of Criminal Investigation, Werner Hamacher, on their retirement.  The outgoing State Director of Criminal Investigation will be succeeded by Senior Director of Criminal Investigation Günter Seidel. His successor in the management of the State Office of Criminal Investigation will be Chief Criminal Director Helmut Brandt. Born in 1935, Brandt joined the police in 1953 and was transferred to the criminal investigation department at an early stage. Before his appointment as head of the LKA, he had already been the permanent deputy of the LKA director.
508. July 1. Fatal shot from a police pistol. In Cologne, 39-year-old Klaus-Peter W. flees from a police traffic stop in his car. When he is finally stopped, a shot is fired from an officer's pistol when the vehicle door is opened. The 39-year-old dies from his injuries. The police officer is later sentenced to a fine.
509 The Conference of Interior Ministers commissions the Messerschmidt Bölkow Blohm company to develop an effective body launcher. The contract is awarded in the wake of extremely violent demonstrations in Wackersdorf and Brokdorf and is to be technically supervised by the Police Command and Staff College. The requirements for the planned operational equipment include No visual resemblance to a firearm, usability of various active ingredients (rubber bullets, rubber buckshot and irritant active ingredients), range over stone-throwing distance, i.e. over 60 m, targeted effect against lawbreakers without endangering bystanders and immediate incapacitation of the lawbreaker.
August 510: The 5,000 submachine guns of the NRW police are currently being equipped with a double safety so that it is no longer possible to switch to continuous fire during firing. The background to this is a case last year in which a police officer killed two hostages in a getaway vehicle during a hostage-taking because his submachine gun had switched to continuous fire.
511. August 1. Obligation to wear a seatbelt is subject to a fine. Seat belt use rate increases from 60% to over 90%. The obligation to wear seat belts without a fine had already been introduced on January 1, 1976, at least for front seat occupants. The fine was preceded by an extensive advertising campaign under the name "Klick - erst gurten, dann starten" ("Click - wear your seatbelt first, then start").
512 The UAS Act is amended. In future, almost all police officers in the senior and higher ranks will be allowed to hold the academic degree of "Diplom-Verwaltungswirt".
513. August 29. Hostage-taking/rampage with fatalities: During a hostage-taking at a savings bank branch in Düsseldorf-Mörsenbroich, 20 police officers equipped with submachine guns and stun grenades are able to storm the bank and free the hostage, the 61-year-old branch manager, after 36 hours. The man, whose leg was amputated, had to be taken to hospital because of the risk of a heart attack. The two bank robbers, aged 28 and 31, lived in the same building as the branch. They had demanded a ransom of DM 500,000 and a getaway car. Immediately after the arrest, the wife of one of the perpetrators killed a 14-year-old boy by driving amok when she crashed into a group of onlookers at the scene of the crime. Five other people were injured.
514. August 30. Stop parking tickets: The federal chairman of the GdP, Mr. Schröder, announces that a "stop parking tickets" will be implemented as a means of exerting pressure on public employers in the upcoming collective bargaining negotiations. Until an acceptable wage agreement is reached, no fines are to be imposed on citizens by civil servants.
515 The riot police department in Essen is merged with the riot police department II in Bochum and renamed "NRW riot police - Bochum/Essen department".
October 516, 31. Senior Police Director Karl-Heinz Paterak retires on reaching the age limit and steps down as Head of the "Carl Severing" Higher State Police School. He will be succeeded by Police Director Horst Olszewski. The 52-year-old officer has been in the police service since 1955 and has headed the police recruitment and selection service since 1974.
517. November 1. The North Rhine-Westphalia Police Advertising and Selection Service is incorporated into the "Carl Severing" Higher State Police School, but retains its name.
December 518: Fines for environmental violations: Interior Minister Schnoor now authorizes North Rhine-Westphalian police officers to collect warning fines of between DM 2 - 20 from offenders for minor environmental violations - just as they already do for traffic violations. For example, the police will punish anyone who throws away bottles, cups or cans outside or empties car ashtrays in the open. This new procedure is intended to reduce the burden on the police, as they were previously unable to issue a "ticket on the spot" and had to write a fine notice for every offense.
519. December 12. The petitions committee of the NRW state parliament calls for the introduction of a zero blood alcohol limit. It is pointed out that the number of alcohol offenders in road traffic has risen by 100% since 1975.
520. police riding squadrons to be retained. The state government's plans to disband some of the 12 police riding squadrons in NRW are abandoned. All squadrons and their target numbers are to be retained, although a total of 34 horses are to be abolished from 1.1.84, leaving the squadrons with 208 animals. The equestrian squadrons are located in the police headquarters of Aachen, Bochum, Bonn, Dortmund, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Cologne, Mönchengladbach, Recklinghausen and Wuppertal. Cologne also has - and will continue to have - a schools department and a remonten department.
521 The state explosive ordnance disposal service of the federal state, which regularly has to be supported by the police in its operations for cordoning off and traffic control measures, carried out around 5,500 operations in 1984. During these operations alone, 2,500 bombs and around 100,000 grenades, mines, hand grenades and bazookas were rendered harmless. Like the police, the Explosive Ordnance Clearance Service reports to the Ministry of the Interior.
522nd police chief constable candidate Josefa Idem, riot police division III in Wuppertal, wins the bronze medal in the two-man kayak together with Barbara Schüttpelz at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

1985

523. January 18. After the highest smog alert level (level III) is declared for the western Ruhr area, the police in Essen, Duisburg, Oberhausen and Bottrop have to enforce the general driving ban and prevent all drivers from continuing to drive their vehicles. Only a few vehicles, in particular those belonging to the fire and rescue services, will be allowed to continue driving. At the same time, alert level II applies to the eastern Ruhr region.
524 With one officer for every 411 citizens, the NRW police force has the lowest police density in Germany after Rhineland-Palatinate (1:414). In Berlin, one police officer only has to deal with 185 citizens, in Saarland with 302 and in Bavaria with 371.
525. April 23. Death during manhunt. During the manhunt for a bank robber, police chief Klaus Schlüter, Soest police, is shot by the fleeing perpetrator and so badly injured that he dies in hospital five days later.
526 The previous Alcotest tubes are replaced by electronic Alcotest devices from Dräger. Previously, drivers suspected of drunkenness had inflated a balloon through a glass tube containing yellow, discolored crystals. When alcohol was consumed, the crystals turned green to a greater or lesser extent. However, as the tubes delivered rather inaccurate results, the Alcotest devices are now used, which measure more precisely and show the suspected blood alcohol level of the offender via a digital display. However, if the test result is positive, it still has to be confirmed by a subsequent blood test at the police station.
November 527. New uniform. The previous leather jackets are to be replaced by leather blouson jackets. Initial trials of the new models are carried out at the Düsseldorf and Gelsenkirchen police stations as well as at the Bergheim OCD and the Dortmund police highway station with 300 officers. A trial will also be carried out with a new motorcycle helmet. The previous jet helmets were open at the bottom to allow unhindered conversations with citizens, but offered no protection for the chin area. The new full-face helmets that are now to be tested have a full-length chin guard. Unlike conventional full-face helmets, however, the chin guard is not rigidly attached to the rest of the helmet, but can be folded upwards if required.
528 The riot police diving teams unearth numerous stolen goods from rivers, canals, quarry ponds and ponds as part of a long-term targeted search operation for two-wheelers. Among the items found in the first half of 1985 were 3 cars, 54 bicycles, 25 bikes, 60 moped and moped frames, 3 parking meters, 3 cigarette and gambling machines and a machine gun belt with ammunition. The search operation, known in police diving circles as "Aktion Speiche", is just one of numerous types of operation. In addition, 22 other missions - searches for missing persons, etc. - were carried out during the same period.
528a.  August. Police officers rob and kill man. On August 7, 1985, hunters found the body of a 56-year-old man in a forest on Düsseldorf soil, on the border with Hilden, who had apparently been cruelly murdered. The investigation into the perpetrators leads to two Düsseldorf police officers, 27-year-old Wolfgang L. and 26-year-old Ralf V. As it turns out later, the two police officers and their later victim met by chance in a pub and were drinking there. As the 56-year-old bragged about his wealth, the two officers came up with the idea of luring him into a wooded area and robbing him. The man is strangled by both perpetrators. Their loot: 30 marks. L. and V. were later charged with murder, but were ultimately convicted of robbery resulting in death. Both were sentenced to 13 years in prison. In their statements to the court, the police officers, who were heavily addicted to alcohol, claimed that the constant "binge drinking" that was common among their colleagues at their station had led them to alcohol addiction. Those who did not drink were exposed to the ridicule of their colleagues.
529. August 11. In Lippstadt, a patrol car crew is lured into an ambush. After a call was received by the incident command center that a person was roaring in front of a house, a car crew went to the specified location. There, a supposedly drunk man was found staggering along the road. When the man does not stop when called out, one of the officers gets out of the vehicle. Immediately afterwards, the apparently drunk man turns around and threatens the officer with a firearm. A second man now comes out of an adjacent bush and also holds a firearm in front of the second officer in the vehicle. The men succeed in tying the two officers together and robbing them of their service weapons and the patrol car. The vehicle is recovered shortly afterwards and the perpetrators are arrested some time later as part of an investigation.
September 530: Too close to a right-wing party? The Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper publishes an article accusing the Dortmund police of having had overly confidential dealings with representatives of the far-right Freedom Workers' Party (FAP). Representatives of the 14th Commissariat (state security) were said to have sat down at a table at the opening of the FAP federal headquarters in Dortmund and explained their measures in relation to an upcoming protest by anti-fascists, trade unionists and SPD members. This also led to a question in the state parliament from SPD MP Champignon. In his reply, the Minister of the Interior denies any confidentiality and any proximity of the police to the FAP. It was not believed that the party was fighting for law and order. However, it had to be respected that such parties could also claim rights for themselves.
531. September 25. Martin Krolzig is appointed the new state pastor for police chaplaincy by Interior Minister Schnoor in the Church of the Redeemer in Essen.  
532 Social reputation of the police. In a study published in 1985 by the council candidates of the 1983/84 academic year and the opinion institute EMNID, criminal investigators are in 11th place in the social ranking of numerous professions in the population and uniformed police officers are in 16th place. Doctors, lawyers, teachers and craftsmen, for example, rank significantly higher in the public's esteem. The most outstanding characteristics of police officers in the public eye are correctness and helpfulness (50 %), while the characteristics that are said to be least typical of police officers include corruptibility, violence, ruthlessness and tolerance (7 - 15 %).
533rd Police Sportsman of the Year 1985 is police sergeant Roland Franzmann, Essen Police Department. He had become German sailing champion in the Olympic dinghy class. He also won the title of European champion on Lake Silvaplana near St. Moritz in Switzerland.

1986

534 The first 10 "data terminals" for training purposes are delivered to the headquarters of the NRW riot police.
535. March 10. Discrimination against Sinti and Roma. The Minister of the Interior decrees in a decree that in order to avoid discrimination in criminal complaints, the use of the terms "Gypsy" and "Landfahrer" as well as references to the ethnic affiliation of the accused to the Sinti and Roma are to be avoided. The regulation should also be seen against the background that this population group suffered injustice at the hands of the state during the Third Reich. The authentic recording of interrogation texts remains unaffected by the new regulations.
536 Greens call for the abolition of the riot police. At its federal convention in Hanover over the Whitsun weekend, the Green Party calls for the riot police, the Federal Border Guard and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to be abolished without replacement. North Rhine-Westphalia's Minister of the Interior, Dr. Schnoor, makes it clear at the Conference of Interior Ministers that the riot police and constitutional protection are indispensable for the security of citizens.
537. In 1986, 67% of young police recruits have a technical college entrance qualification or A-levels, 31% have an intermediate school leaving certificate and 2% have a lower secondary school leaving certificate.
538. August 20. The Duisburg police and numerous emergency services are called out to a toxic gas accident at the Mannesmann Demag AG plant. During grinding work on a pipe, a large quantity of trichloroethylene, which converts to the war gas phosgene when exposed to heat, escapes. 38 people are injured by the gas leak.
October 539. Police Director Dietloff Kapp, the head of Riot Police Division III in Wuppertal, dies at the age of 59. Kapp had taken over the management of the training center in 1972.
540. December 31. Residential building fire with four fatalities. Fire investigators in Oberhausen have to deal with a house fire that occurs on New Year's Eve morning in Oberhausen. While a couple were able to escape from the house, their two boys and two girls fell victim to the flames. They can only be rescued dead from the colliery house after the fire has been extinguished.
541 Dr. Jakob Jülicher, President of the Water Police for many years, retires. Jülicher had been appointed Director of the Water Police in 1962, which was later converted into the office of Police President. Jülicher died three years after his retirement on June 15, 1989, and was succeeded by Ministerialrat Dierck Henning Schnitzler. Schnitzler had previously worked for the District President in Düsseldorf, the Mönchengladbach Police Department and the Ministry of the Interior. His great interest in technical matters makes him particularly suitable for the office of Chief of Police of the Water Police.
542 The police are conducting a trial with carrying bags for hand-held radios. The bags can be worn on the belt or shoulder strap and are coupled with a microphone loudspeaker that is clipped to the collar or shoulder piece. Initially 500 carrier bags will be issued.
543rd change to the vehicle fleet. The Ford Granada previously used by the highway patrol is to be replaced by its successor, the Ford Scorpio. The new model, equipped with an anti-lock braking system, initially seemed unaffordable in view of the police budget. However, after negotiations, Ford finally made the police a favorable offer. First, however, the Scorpio was to be tested for its suitability for patrols.

1987

544. February 4. More than 140 vehicles crash into each other on the A4 between Cologne and Düren in dense fog. Three people die and 33 others are injured. The police discover that some of the drivers were speeding through the fog at 80 to 90 km/h in visibility of only 30 meters.  Interior Minister Schnoor considers detaining reckless speeders in parking lots until the fog has cleared.
545. February 4. Fatal shot at burglar. While attempting to break into a restaurant, the perpetrators are caught by a police patrol in Kempen/Lower Rhine. While one of the men flees, the second, a 44-year-old, attacks a police officer. The latter fires a shot at the perpetrator, who dies of his injuries.
February 546. New GdP chairman: At an extraordinary state delegates' conference of the police union, Dortmund chief inspector Klaus Steffenhagen becomes the new state chairman. He replaces Günter Schröder, who is no longer a candidate.
547. February 8. Hostage-taking in a prison. Three prisoners convicted of murder in Duisburg prison take a 25-year-old prison officer hostage and demand a ransom of 1.5 million marks. Officers from the State Office of Criminal Investigation have contact with the perpetrators during the hostage-taking. After they manage to extort their way out of the prison, they flee in the direction of Aachen with a car provided, 700,000 marks in cash and their hostage. After abandoning their vehicle and fleeing on foot, two of the men are arrested in Herzogenrath, the third a few hours later in the Netherlands. The law enforcement officer can be freed unharmed from the men's grasp.
548 After a successful trial run at the Bielefeld police department, the Düsseldorf, Recklinghausen and Mettmann police departments now also receive computer systems for automated case management (AVV). The central computer alone, with a 110 MB hard disk, costs 80,000 Deutschmarks. In addition, there are two hard disks of 275 MB each (DM 60,000), 11 terminals with keyboards (DM 60,000), 11 inkjet printers with a total value of 25,000 euros as well as data transmission hardware and an operating system for a further DM 50,000.  A further advance in the direction of data processing technology is made with the Police Logistics System (POLOS), which is introduced in six test authorities in 1987 and with which all procurement measures from "erasers to helicopters" are to be automated and simplified.
549. March 1. The training programs of the district police authorities and the riot police are expanded to include "Integrated Training" (IF). As part of this program, officers are taught stress and conflict management, communication rules, tactics and self-protection, intervention techniques (defense, restraint of persons, etc.), shooting/non-shooting training and intervention law standards.
550 The new census planned for May raises public opinion and also concerns the police. 49% of citizens consider the survey to be superfluous, 13% want to refuse to take part in any case.  As early as March, an explosive attack is carried out on Leverkusen town hall in connection with the census; in Oberhausen, an explosion is prevented in time by the police.  After the start of the survey, there are numerous violent attacks against the people conducting the census. The attacks are strongly condemned by the state government and increased police patrols in hotspots are announced.  In Bonn, the police search the federal office of the Green Party after the party had called for a boycott of the census with leaflets.
551. May 2. Papal visit. During his five-day visit to Germany, Pope John Paul II also stops off in Bottrop, Essen and Gelsenkirchen. Numerous police officers have to protect his routes. The highlight of his visit is an appearance in front of 100,000 people in Gelsenkirchen's Parkstadion.
September 552. The "blue lights" as individual lights on patrol cars are now gradually giving way to the so-called "all-round sound combination" (RTK), in which two blue lights and a flashing "STOP POLICE" indicator light are combined on one bar. The illuminated display is emitted to the front in mirror writing so that it can also be read by drivers ahead. In September, the first green and white vehicles with the RTK are purchased in North Rhine-Westphalia, having already been introduced in some other federal states shortly before.
November 553. 20,000 police officers from all over Germany, including many from North Rhine-Westphalia, gather for a commemorative march against violence against police officers through Frankfurt city center. Two police officers who were shot dead by demonstrators at Frankfurt Airport's "Runway West" on November 2 and two other police officers who were killed by gunfire during an operation in Hanover on October 22 will also be commemorated. A large memorial service is held for the murdered officers in Frankfurt Cathedral.  The police union in Düsseldorf organizes another memorial march with 4,000 participants.
554 The incomes of civil servants, employees and workers in the police force are increased by 3.4%.
555 The curriculum for the new subject "Behavioral Training and Communication (VTK)" comes into force.
556 The "Federal Working Group of Critical Police Officers" is founded.
557 Alfred Dietel, Inspector of Police in North Rhine-Westphalia, is retired by Interior Minister Schnoor. He is succeeded by Senior Police Director Manfred Quentin, who had been Head of Operations at the Ministry of the Interior since 1983.
558 Dr. Kurt Gintzel, Director of the riot police, also retires. Dr. Gintzel is succeeded by Senior Police Director Horst Olszewski, who had been Head of the "Carl Severing" Higher State Police School in Münster since 1984.

1988

559. In 1988, the operation of Gazelle SA 341 G police helicopters, four of which had been purchased since 1972, comes to an end. The streamlined helicopters had room for four people and reached a maximum speed of 235 km/h with their 600 hp engines.
560. February 8. Plane crash. A twin-engine turboprop aircraft from Hanover with 21 people on board gets caught in a heavy storm between Mülheim and Essen-Kettwig on its approach to Düsseldorf Airport and crashes in a field below the Ruhr Valley Bridge. All passengers and crew members die. The Essen police launch a large-scale investigation.
561. August 16. Gladbeck hostage-taking: A Deutsche Bank branch in Gladbeck is robbed by Dieter Degowski and Hans-Jürgen Rösner, both of whom have serious criminal records. The two perpetrators flee the bank with hostages and hijack a fully occupied bus, forcing the driver to drive to the Netherlands and then to Bremen. The odyssey of the two criminals, which extends over the following two days, finally ends in a gunfight with SEK forces on the A3 near Bad Honnef. The hostage-takers shot two hostages (aged 15 and 18) during their odyssey. A police officer was also killed during the pursuit. The lessons learned from this unprecedented mobile operation were to fundamentally change police tactics in hostage situations and other serious operations.
562 Police officers in uniform take part in a demonstration march in Duisburg in solidarity with steelworkers whose jobs are to be eliminated in Duisburg-Rheinhausen. Within 25 years, 630,000 jobs have been lost in the steel and metal industry. Interior Minister Herbert Schnoor defends the behavior of his officials.
563rd The inspector of the North Rhine-Westphalian police, Manfred Quentin, dies after a short illness at the age of 51.  His successor is Heinz Stork, who was previously head of the Cologne police force.
564 The riot police include a section on "information and communication technology" in their curriculum for trainees. The 60-hour course takes account of the fact that computers have to be used in more and more areas of the police force. All riot police departments receive two Siemens MX 2 computers, ten monitors and keyboards as well as two inkjet printers for their "data rooms". The computers have a memory capacity of 80 megabytes. The PARIS office communication system is installed as software. The trainees are to acquire knowledge about the working methods of computers and become familiar with word processing and database systems.
565 The police unions are campaigning for a reduction in the working life of police officers. The German Police Union, for example, is calling for the retirement age to be reduced from 60 to 55. This "should take into account the particular stresses and strains of police service". A reduction in weekly working hours from the current 40 hours is also being discussed.
566 At the end of 1988, 4.5 million people are entered in the central traffic register in Flensburg. Just under half a million of these are multiple offenders.  
567 Police sportsman of the year 1988 is Henning Tonn. The senior police officer from the Bielefeld police department becomes European police cycling champion. The state's 4 x 100 breaststroke relay team is voted police team of the year. All four police chief constables of this relay team (Thorsten Juds, Martin Kröger, Michael Müntjes and Uwe Bergmeier) belong to the riot police in Selm.
568. In 1988, 292 wrong-way drivers are reported to the highway police in NRW. Five people are killed and five injured as a result of wrong-way driving. The police succeed in apprehending the wrong-way drivers in 58 cases.
569. November 22. Minister of the Interior remains in office despite calls for his resignation. Following the events surrounding the Gladbeck hostage drama, in which three people lost their lives, Minister President Johannes Rau expresses his confidence in Interior Minister Dr. Schnoor. The opposition had demanded his resignation and called a special session of the state parliament.

1989

570. April 1. A new police authority is created with the Central Police Technical Services (ZPD). The ZPD combines the telecommunications service of the North Rhine-Westphalian police and the ADV department of the State Office of Criminal Investigation. Head of the new police authority is Chief Police Director Gerd Lehmann.
571. April 7: The previous head of the "Carl Severing" Higher State Police School, Senior Police Director Gerd Lehmann, is dismissed after two years of service. At the same time, his successor, Senior Police Director Heinz Ludwig Leding, is inaugurated. Leding had previously been head of the Gelsenkirchen police force.
572: The working week for police officers in NRW is reduced from 42 to 40 hours.
573 May: The water police receive a special vehicle - a VW bus - which is equipped to combat environmental crime with equipment that enables optimal sampling and evidence to be collected even under the most difficult conditions.  The vehicle's off-road capabilities and its ability to climb and tilt sideways make it possible to carry out investigations even in extremely difficult terrain. The vehicle costs around DM 100,000, including its equipment and special technical features.
June 574: 1,500 police officers from all federal states come together in Bonn for a major police show. 100,000 visitors get to see exercises by the helicopter squadrons and the water police as well as demonstrations with service dogs and service horses, performances by the traffic dummy stages and much more.
575th dismissal of proceedings against police officers. The investigations against the police officers against whom criminal charges were brought in connection with the Gladbeck hostage affair in 1988 are dropped by the public prosecutor's office. The public prosecutor's office states that neither the officers nor Interior Minister Schnoor can be held criminally responsible. The decisions to allow the hostage-takers to leave freely, to hand over a getaway car and to seize the hostage-takers on the A3 had been "carefully weighed up without any errors of judgment". The defense lawyer of one of the hostage-takers, lawyer Rolf Bossi, appeals against the decision.
576. June 12-15. State visit by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to Bonn.
577. June 30. In Essen, a 13-year-old schoolboy is shot dead by the police during a police operation. The physically strong and tall boy had previously snatched the gun from the holster of an officer and threatened the officers on the scene. In self-defense, shots are fired at the pupil, who dies in the process.
578. July 18. Measures against residential burglary. Due to the rising number of domestic burglaries in recent years and the low detection rate, the Minister of the Interior issues a decree making 12 platoons of riot police available three days a week to combat burglaries.
579. October 12. The police put their first stationary speed monitoring system into operation. Nationwide speed checks and serious accidents at roadworks were the reason for installing the first system of its kind on the A1 near the "Volmarsteiner Talbrücke" roadworks near Hagen. The speed of vehicles is determined by sensors embedded in the road surface. If the speed is exceeded, a frontal photo of the vehicle and driver is taken.
580. November 9. Fall of the Wall. After months of massive protests by the GDR population against the regime in East Berlin, the GDR government admits defeat. The Berlin Wall falls. GDR citizens and German citizens can now enter and leave the other part of Germany freely.  The North Rhine-Westphalian police also clearly felt the effects. As many people leave the GDR and move to the West, numerous emergency shelters have to be improvised. Among other things, riot police sports halls are converted into accommodation for the new citizens. Just one day after the fall of the Wall, 80 men, women and children arrive at the Wuppertal riot police, who have to be accommodated in the BPA III sports center. The officers of the department are actively involved.
581 The highway police are equipped with more powerful company cars. Having previously driven Ford Scorpio vehicles with 74 kW engines, which could barely exceed a top speed of 140 km/h in an emergency and quickly became noticeable during pursuits, the officers now acquire the new Ford Scorpio model with 2.4 l engines and 92 kW.
582 The NRW police begin wearing tests for a new motorcycle protection suit in the fall. The previous leather combinations have repeatedly caused problems for police motorcyclists, as the suits were too hot in summer and too cold in winter. The new suits made of GORE-TEX material are intended to solve this problem. The material of the suits allows the moisture inside to evaporate via membranes, while the heat is kept close to the body. The new bike suits are also designed to keep out the wind and provide good protection from the heat in hot temperatures.
583. 1989. establishment of the "Central Training and Further Training Center for SEK (ZAF SEK)" in Cologne
584 The "German Society for Police History" is founded at the Police Command and Staff College in Münster. The society is initially founded by 15 members from all over Germany. It is intended to bring together historians
historians, amateur historians, official and private collectors and museums.
585 A study by the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration on the subject of "Limits and possibilities of non-violent intervention", in which 665 police officers in various district police authorities and at the University of Applied Sciences were surveyed, leads to the following key findings (only significant results with a random probability of less than 1% were presented): Police officers are less aggressive than the general population. Police officers in large cities are less aggressive than officers in medium-sized and small towns. The more aggressive police officers are, the more likely they are to use violence on duty. Police commanders are more likely to believe that violence could have been avoided in specific cases than officers at the executive level. Police leaders and college students are less likely than other officers to call for greater use of force when violence escalates. 50% of officers acknowledged that force could have been avoided in certain cases.
586 The model of a "load-related distribution of forces (BKV)" is an attempt to distribute posts in the individual police authorities according to their operational load. This is intended to ensure a fairer distribution of personnel than in the past.
587 Criminal offenses committed by police officers. The Ministry of the Interior publishes figures on criminal offenses committed by police officers. Herbert Schnoor is particularly keen to ensure transparency in light of the so-called "road toll affair" in the administrative districts of Arnsberg and Münster, in which highway police officers demanded parts of truck drivers' loads, mainly foodstuffs, without payment in order to spare them from necessary police measures. He points out that 96 - 98 % of all criminal proceedings against police officers do not lead to the establishment of a criminal offense. In 1986, 134 of the approximately 40,000 police officers in NRW were convicted by criminal courts, in 1987 the figure was 158 and in 1988 a total of 121. The topic is now also increasingly being discussed in the training of young officers and in service instruction as part of professional ethics.

Figure 6: Police helicopter in Düsseldorf at the end of the 1980s (Erik Hesse)

90s                           

The reunification of East and West Germany into a single state, initiated by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, does not remain without consequences for the police in North Rhine-Westphalia. Not only is a four-digit number of police officers seconded to the new federal state of Brandenburg for police reconstruction work as part of a cooperation agreement. The Central Investigation Office for Government and Unification Crime, which has to deal with cases such as fatal shootings at the former zonal border or crimes committed by SED officials, also needs personnel from NRW. The bitter era of RAF terrorism came to an end in 1998 when the group officially dissolved itself, but not without having claimed another victim a few years earlier with the murder of Treuhand boss Karsten Rohwedder in his Düsseldorf apartment. With the widespread introduction of computers in police stations and criminal investigation departments, the modern age arrived in the police force - albeit several years behind the private sector, for which electronic data processing on a broad front was already a matter of course well before that. Forensic work progresses considerably with the introduction of two databases. Both an electronic data collection of finger and palm prints and a DNA analysis file are set up at the Federal Criminal Police Office, from whose research possibilities NRW and the other federal states benefit. Countless crimes are subsequently solved with the help of the two data systems. Another major topic of the decade is globalization. The Schengen Implementation Agreement and the Maastricht Treaties create important foundations for cross-border police cooperation. By seconding police officers as part of UN missions, for example in Bosnia-Herzegovina, NRW now also makes a significant contribution to the development of democratic police forces in other European countries and to the prosecution of human rights crimes in these countries.

1990

588. January 1. Long-serving service dogs receive a reprieve with immediate effect. In future, dogs that no longer meet the requirements of the service and remain with their handlers are granted an allowance of DM 50 per month of life or part thereof. Service dog owners are also exempt from dog tax.
January 589. The property protection service in the federal capital Bonn makes considerable demands on the police. Interior Minister Schnoor points out in January, on the occasion of the opening of a new building for the property protection service costing DM 46 million, that North Rhine-Westphalia must not slacken in its efforts in view of the continuing threat from terrorists. Around 300 properties currently need to be protected in Bonn. The 600 officers of the property protection service must be supported by the officers of the riot police in order to be able to fulfill their tasks.
590th Travel restrictions for (police) officers lifted. The reunification of the two German states casts its shadow. The travel directive for members of the civil service, which prohibits police officers, among others, from traveling to the GDR and other Eastern European countries without the approval of their employer, is repealed.
591. green service sweaters. The beige service pullovers are gradually replaced by green ones with immediate effect. The funds for the first 6,000 sweaters have been approved.
592. April 11. Killed in the line of duty. Chief Constable Wilfried Zander, Cologne highway police, is shot dead by an escaped prisoner during a manhunt. The father of three children had been on duty with the highway police in Eschweiler for almost 20 years. Around 3,000 police officers and other guests attend the funeral service in Baesweiler.
593. April 25. The Cologne police are called out to a spectacular case. At an election campaign event in Cologne-Mülheim, a woman from Bad Neuenahr suffering from schizophrenia stabbed Saarland Minister President and chancellor candidate Oskar Lafontaine several times in the neck with a knife, critically injuring him. Lafontaine survives the knife attack.
594. April 27. Interior Minister Schnoor opens the first anti-drug disco in Bottrop. The disco event - organized by the police - combines a large dance and music event for young people and a police campaign to combat drug use among young people.
595 June 5. Members of the Red Army faction raid the Massa market in Duisburg and loot DM 325,000.
596. NRW police receive reinforcements from the GDR. Police dog "Rocky", who previously served on the inner-German border, is now deployed with the police in Hagen. He is the only service dog from the GDR to have passed the strict entrance examination in NRW.
597 Prof. Dr. Rainer Schulte becomes President of the Police Leadership Academy in Münster. He succeeds Konrad Peitz, who had headed the institution for 17 years.  
598 The Ministry of the Interior assumes that around 5% of all police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia, i.e. more than 2,100, are alcoholics. Full-time police addiction counselors are still being rejected for cost reasons.
599 One of the lessons learned from the Gladbeck hostage-taking in 1988 was that the police need greater transport capacities for special units. For this reason, two BK 177 B2 helicopters were purchased for the police helicopter squadron from 1990. The aircraft have 8 and 11 seats respectively, consume 250 l/hour with their two 590 hp engines and reach a cruising speed of 235 km/h. They can fly for 3:15 hours. They can be kept in the air for 3:15 hours. Three more aircraft of this type are subsequently purchased.
600. October 3. Reunification of Germany
601st Police officers are introduced to the function of "social contact person (SAP)" for the first time.

1991

601a.  January. Düsseldorf police officer Anatol Herzfeld retires. Known far beyond the police force, the artist and pupil of Joseph Beuys is a well-known figure in the German art scene under the name Anatol. Herzfeld, who is active in the field of visual arts and action art, was a member of the Düsseldorf Traffic Puppet Theater.
602. April 1. Treuhand boss Karsten Rohwedder is shot dead by RAF terrorists in his house in Düsseldorf. The manager has just returned home from a visit and is standing at the brightly lit window of his study when he is hit by a shot fired from outside, tearing his aorta, trachea and oesophagus and causing him to bleed to death.  
603. setting up a mobile task force (MEK) at the LKA.
604: Interior Minister Schnoor accepts a report commissioned from the management consultancy Kienbaum on the functional evaluation of police jobs. According to the report, almost all police jobs are undervalued in relation to other areas of public administration and the private sector. According to the report, almost all police jobs are assigned to the higher service.
605. the police must increasingly deal with the theft of so-called "cell phones". While the theft of six telephones was reported in 1989, the figure had risen to 447 by 1990.
606 Police Captain Klaus Balkenhol from Düsseldorf, a member of the national dressage squad, becomes German men's dressage champion on his service horse "Goldstern".
607 The Central Investigation Office for Government and Association Crime (ZERV) is set up in Berlin and made up of officers from all the federal states. After an initial low level of participation, 52 officers from NRW are involved in the 340-strong organization in 1995. Among other things, they deal with political crimes committed by those in power in the GDR, the execution of the shoot-to-kill order at the inner-German border and illegal asset transfers during the fall of communism.
608 In 1991, several police officers also rendered outstanding services to the official suggestion scheme, under which good suggestions for improvement from authority employees for optimizing work are rewarded with bonuses. For example, Chief Constable Wilfried Clever from Bonn Police Department invented a stirrup light mounted on a rail that can be quickly attached and detached as lighting for the horses of police riding squadrons. Thanks to a tip-off from Chief Superintendent Dietmar Körner from the Meschede district police authority, the 500,000 plastic mouthpieces that the NRW police need every year for their breath alcohol testing devices could now be procured more cheaply. And Chief Constable Kay-Jürgen Schröder from the freeway police at Münster Regional Council was honored for his suggestion to move the transition area at roadworks for vehicles entering the freeway 250 m forward. This has already led to a noticeable reduction in the number of accidents at highway construction sites.
September 609: The "Carl Severing" Higher State Police School now offers leadership training for police leaders of all branches. The aim of the training is to provide seminar participants with new insights into leadership techniques and ethical issues.
610 The head of the Central Police Technical Services, Senior Police Director Gerd Lehmann, leaves his post and moves to the Ministry of the Interior. His successor at the ZPD is Senior Police Director Robert Dörr.

1992

611. January 1. The federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg conclude an administrative assistance agreement, which is implemented from January 1, 1992. In 1992 alone, NRW sends 1,230 police officers to Brandenburg for up to 12 months of consultancy. At the same time, 1,218 Brandenburg officers spend time in police authorities in NRW.
612 Establishment of a special task force (SEK) in Münster and one negotiation team each in Bielefeld and Essen.
613 The overview of posts for 1993 is presented. According to this, the number of police officers is to increase by a good 100 to 45,165. Of these posts, around 27,400 will be in the middle grade, just under 13,000 in the upper grade and around 350 in the higher grade. The remaining posts are accounted for by 600 auxiliary civil servants and just under 3,800 PHW trainees.
614 School education. The Abitur is still gaining ground among applicants for the police profession. Whereas in 1991, 33% of newly recruited police officers had a general higher education entrance qualification or a vocational baccalaureate, in 1992 this figure had risen to around 36%. 59% of young trainees have a secondary school leaving certificate and 5% have a lower secondary school leaving certificate.
615 From 1992, the state provides posts for the transition of older police chief officers to senior superintendents. This is intended to enable older middle-ranking officers to be promoted to the higher ranks and at the same time to achieve the goal of gradually transferring the North Rhine-Westphalian police force to a two-tier career system (only higher and higher ranks). On April 24, 1995, all chief constables are to be appointed commissioners for the same reason. 6,000 police superintendents are to be transferred in three annual stages, first to chief constables and one year later to commissioners.
616 April 13. Countless citizens throughout the Rhineland excitedly call the police control centers. The reason is an earthquake measuring 5.8 points on the Richter scale, which shakes the German-Dutch border region as well as the Ruhr area. At least 58 people are injured in the earthquake. In the district of Heinsberg in particular, where the quake is centered, 70 houses are so badly damaged that they will probably have to be demolished. The damage amounts to around 100 million marks. The quake, which causes many people to panic, is the worst in the Rhineland for 236 years. The police are deployed on a large scale.
617. April 24. Fatal shooting in hospital. An alcoholic patient (59 years old) threatens fellow patients in a hospital in Bonn with a firearm and a knife; when he shoots at SEK officers who have been called in, they fire back.
618: The Conference of Interior Ministers in Dresden drafts a resolution and an action plan against xenophobia.
619. July 13. The director of the riot police, Horst Olszewski, retires. The new head of the riot police is Senior Police Director Wolf Immisch, who was previously responsible for police training in the Ministry of the Interior.
620. August 11-12. At the German Police Judo Championships in Bochum, the North Rhine-Westphalian team is once again the most successful team.
August 3, 621. Knife attacker dies from police shots. A 52-year-old troublemaker in Düren attacks arriving police officers with two knives. One of the officers shoots the man in self-defense and kills him.
622: The North Rhine-Westphalian police team wins the German Police Football Championships in Hanover.
623. September 30. Interior Minister Schnoor bids farewell to the incumbent Inspector of Police, Heinz Stork, on his retirement. At the same time, he appoints his successor, Police Director Ulrich Dugas.  
624 All patrol cars are equipped with a forensic kit for recording traffic accidents.
625. October 17. Death after a neighbor dispute. During a tenancy dispute in Kamen, the landlord suddenly shoots at the mediating police officers and seriously injures one of them; he is then shot dead by his colleague.
626. November 8. The Conference of Interior Ministers decides to increase the danger allowance for SEK officers from DM 200 to DM 300.
627 In December, a large police museum is set up at Dortmund police headquarters
628 Moving radar measuring devices: The police on the freeways in the Düsseldorf administrative district now use radar measuring devices (moving radar) installed in civilian service vehicles to measure speeding even while the vehicle is moving. The devices record vehicles overtaking the official vehicles via video recording and calculate the speed being driven. The moving radar devices can also measure the distance of following vehicles.
629 The "simplified procedure" for combating criminal offenses is being introduced on a trial basis. The new procedure is intended to save resources by simplifying the fight against crime in simple cases. For example, correspondence in these cases will be reduced by allowing witnesses and defendants to fill out simplified interrogation protocols and simplifying the interrogations themselves.
630th charitable measure: A convoy of eleven vehicles with 22 officers from the Wuppertal riot police set off for Russia, to the Chernobyl area, where a serious nuclear accident occurred in 1986. The officers are carrying around 300,000 marks worth of clothing and vitamin-rich food to support 6-14-year-old children whose immune systems have been weakened by the radiation accident. The officials are overwhelmed by a wave of gratitude in Russia.
631. around 1,000 civil servants who are 44 years old or older are given the opportunity to be promoted to the senior civil service with fewer examinations. The best applicants are selected as part of a two-day personnel selection center (PAC). The applicants' personal and social skills are assessed.

1993

632 The 1993 NRW state budget provides almost 5 billion marks for the police authorities and police establishments in the state. This represents a 5.5% increase in the police budget compared to the previous year. At 3.6 billion marks, personnel costs have the biggest impact. In second place is material expenditure at 568 million marks. Building expenditure amounted to 126 million marks.
633. January 10. In Wülfrath, police chief Adalbert Bach is shot dead by criminals. Police dog handler Bach had confronted three heavily armed petrol station robbers on a lonely country lane in Nord-Erbach that evening, who immediately made use of their firearms.
634. staffing levels: For the current year, around 45,000 police officers are planned in NRW, of which 38,700 are members of the protective police and 6,500 are criminal investigation officers. The officers of the protective police also include 600 civil servants in grades A5 - A9. 27,000 officers are in the intermediate service, 13,000 in the higher service and 440 in the higher service.
635. July 20/21. Riot Police Division III (Wuppertal) hosts the 24th German Police Athletics Championships. North Rhine-Westphalia is the absolute leader in the competitions with 6 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze medals.
636 A "rinsing mobile" is delivered to the Bochum riot police department II. This vehicle, which can be used to wash large quantities of dishes during large-scale operations, is intended to save the cost of plastic dishes. The very first use of the dishwashing mobile saves 500 units of disposable crockery.
637. bad business with the name "police". The Tübingen Regional Court awards a plaintiff the right not to have to pay for an expensive advertisement in the magazine "Blaulicht". The ruling is based on the fact that the magazine gives the impression that it is published by the police. This is the case when a magazine describes itself as a "police magazine" or "police newspaper". However, the publishers of the magazine had not only created this official impression, but also the number of copies published - only 24 copies were distributed in total - with an advertising price of DM 678.00 was not acceptable. The term "police" had obviously been used here to convey seriousness and attract customers.
638 The fingerprint identification system (AFIS) is introduced at the Federal Criminal Police Office. This enables the automated comparison of crime scene evidence and fingerprints or palm prints of suspects. The search for evidence is made considerably easier and faster. Like the other federal states, North Rhine-Westphalia is connected to AFIS via the State Criminal Police Office.
639 Foreigners are recruited as police officers in the North Rhine-Westphalian police force for the first time. Ten officers who are not German within the meaning of the Basic Law begin their training. Although "several hundred" people have applied, a disproportionate number have not passed the recruitment tests.  
640 By the autumn of 1993, all heads of "danger prevention/criminal prosecution" and almost all heads of administration of the 47 district police authorities have been appointed for the forthcoming reorganization of the police in 1994.
641 Several police officers who have achieved top places in international sports competitions are honored by the Ministry of the Interior. Among those honored are Klaus Balkenhol, Düsseldorf Police Department (Olympic participant and German champion in dressage riding), Karin Thal, Wuppertal Police Department (participation in the World Championships in rescue swimming), Manfred Ricklin, Steinfurt Police Department (World Championships in duathlon) and Roland Franzmann (European Championships in sailing).
642 The new police chief of the NRW Water Police is Wolfgang Tiebel, senior government director and lawyer. He was previously Head of Human Resources at the District President in Düsseldorf.
643 Police pastor Martin Krolzig receives the Federal Cross of Merit for his pastoral work with police officers from Interior Minister Behrens.
644 The officers of the task forces receive new, 500g lighter helmets and torso, leg and arm protectors, which are worn under the uniform. The protectors offer protection against stabs, punches, blows, bullets and stones.
645th Minister of the Interior Schnoor christens two new water police boats. The boats (WSP 4 and WSP 12) are part of the new "Rheinstreifenboote 2000" series, of which more are to be delivered.
646th swearing-in ceremony for 1,183 new police officers.
647 The first VW T4 (VW bus) patrol cars are delivered to the police authorities.  The order and delivery of the vehicles was preceded by a six-month test by 1,200 police officers, who tested both the VW and the Ford FT bus. Almost 72% of the officers opted for the VW T4 after the test.
648. May 29. Five women are killed in the flames of an arson attack on a two-family house belonging to a Turkish family in Solingen. The "Sole" investigation commission, consisting of officers from the North Rhine-Westphalian police and the Federal Criminal Police Office, is set up at Wuppertal police headquarters to investigate the crime, which causes a nationwide stir. After the crime, which apparently had a right-wing extremist background, four young men were arrested and subsequently sentenced to long prison terms.  
649 The police purchase the first five laser measuring devices for speed checks.  The purchase price of a single device is around DM 10,000.
650: For the first time, NRW's police use hot-air balloons with advertising imprints to recruit young police officers. The slogan "Police - a career on the rise" is printed on the balloons.
651st The 2,500 female police officers in NRW receive new uniforms. The Munich-based company Nicole Dürr Design has designed a total of 14 items of clothing, from leather jackets and shield barrettes to trouser skirts, which are intended to give the female officers a more fashionable look while still being functional.
652 Introduction of computers for the guard and change service. The first single-user computers are purchased for the guard and change service. A total of 12,000 computers are to be purchased for the whole of North Rhine-Westphalia.   
653. August 15. The hijacking of a Dutch airliner at Düsseldorf Airport ends without serious consequences. The Boeing 737, carrying 131 passengers, had been on a flight from Tunisia to Amsterdam when a 40-year-old Egyptian forced the plane to land in Düsseldorf. After the Düsseldorf police had deployed numerous of their own forces, SEK officers and GSG 9 officers, the hijacking was finally ended without bloodshed after 18 hours by the GSG 9 storming the plane and overpowering the hijacker. He had already released all the passengers.
654 Not least because of the massive transgressions that representatives of the mass media had allowed themselves during the Gladbeck hostage-taking, a commission consisting of members of media organizations and interior ministries was set up, which in 1994 adopted the "Police and Media" code of conduct it had drawn up. According to these principles, the police should actively give media representatives the opportunity to report on important operational situations. To this end, they oblige media representatives to give priority to the legal interests of life and health over reporting in the event of accidents, disasters and serious crime. Journalists must also not allow themselves to become henchmen of criminals and must not offer them a stage for public self-promotion.
655. October 12. Maastricht Treaties ratified
656 After the training of special units had been carried out decentrally in the past, including in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Münster, on 10 March 1993 the Minister of the Interior instructs the Directorate of Riot Police Division II to set up the training centre for special units (FSE) in Essen.
657. December 10: Fatal accident involving a police officer. Shortly before midnight, a drunk driver approaches a patrol car crew from the Lippstadt police station in the Geseke area and collides with the police vehicle. The two officers' patrol car, an Opel Ascona, is completely destroyed by the collision. The driver who caused the accident is fatally injured. The occupants of the police car are seriously injured. Chief Constable Herbert Oslislo is trapped in the car and can only be rescued after a long time. He dies in the ambulance. Herbert Oslislo leaves behind a wife and six children aged between seven years and a few weeks.

1994

658 The North Rhine-Westphalian police take part in missions abroad from 1994. On 13.10.94, the first 20 of 160 officers travel to Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina to set up a local multi-ethnic police organization. Subsequently, police officers from NRW are also involved in missions in Georgia, Macedonia, Afghanistan, Albania and Kosovo, among others  
659 The state crime school moves into a new office building in Neuss, on Hammfelddamm.
660 The police set up a "violent offenders file for sport". This file collects the names of people who are conspicuous for their violent behavior at sporting events.
661. the Ministry of the Interior decides on a so-called target agreement procedure for the police authorities, with which the employees of the authorities can be involved in their work targets in future. While broad objectives are set for the state (increasing citizens' sense of security / reducing traffic accidents involving children / preventive and repressive measures to combat particularly socially harmful forms of crime), the employees of the authorities can formulate objectives specifically tailored to the characteristics of their own authorities within the framework of these guidelines.
662. May 18. Death during speed check. In the course of a speed check, Chief Constable Heinrich Wottke, Höxter police, wants to stop the driver of a speeding VW Golf. The driver of the car brakes shortly before reaching the officer, flashes his lights and then accelerates again. The 51-year-old police officer is hit in the process. He dies at the scene of the accident. The person responsible for the accident can be arrested 45 minutes later. He is a 19-year-old student who had previously stolen the car.
663 The press decree obliges all 50 district police authorities in NRW to set up their own press office. Many authorities already have such press offices at this time.
664 Since June 1994, mountain bike patrols have been deployed in Cologne.
665 Since September, North Rhine-Westphalia has offered high school graduates direct entry into the senior civil service. The first 450 young men and women with A-levels now start their training at the University of Applied Sciences.
666. October 1. State Director of Criminal Investigation Günter Seidel is replaced by his successor Rudi Justen. Justen has previously worked at the State Office of Criminal Investigation, the Cologne, Leverkusen and Duisburg police presidents and the Ministry of the Interior, where he was head of the "Law Enforcement" department.
667. October 9 - 11. EU summit in Essen.  A year earlier, the Essen police had been tasked with preparing an operation to secure the event and the security of the state guests. In addition to Chancellor Kohl and other members of the German government, six Western and six Central Eastern European heads of government and their high-ranking delegations took part in the event. An anti-summit demonstration by 2,000 - 3,000 autonomous demonstrators is banned by the Essen police chief, as there were indications of violent riots. The ban is lifted by the administrative court, but is ultimately upheld by the higher administrative court. However, summary proceedings initiated by the organizers before the Federal Constitutional Court are not concluded before the demonstration. In the end, 942 rioters were taken into custody in the city center. A total of 8,000 police officers from all over Germany are deployed at the summit.
668th reorganization of the police in NRW. By the end of the year, all authorities apart from the Paderborn OCD have implemented the reorganization.  The previous organizational model, which provided for three departments (security police / criminal investigation department / administration) in the district police authorities, was abandoned. The authorities are now divided into two departments: administration/logistics (VL) and security/law enforcement (GS). The criminal investigation department is no longer a separate department, but is now divided into two sub-units of the GS department. In future, minor and medium-level crimes will be dealt with in criminal investigation departments, which are integrated into the police inspectorates and whose heads report to the head of the inspectorate. The more serious crimes will be dealt with in a sub-division called "Central Crime Control" (ZKB). This ZKB also includes the criminal police service units such as the identification service, the forensic investigation unit and the "Criminal Investigation Department Prevention". The "Police State Security" forms a separate subdivision.  
669 Police Master Tanja Stolper (23) becomes the first woman to serve in the North Rhine-Westphalian water police.
670 The Bochum police set up five mobile police stations. These are VW buses equipped as mobile offices that travel to various parts of the city to serve as police contact points for citizens.
671. an amendment to the Civil Service Framework Act means that not only Germans but also nationals of other EU countries can now become police officers without exception. Previously, foreign nationals could only be accepted into the police force in exceptional cases if there was an "urgent official need".
672 The water police section in Essen not only receives a new office building with a boat hall in the basement, but also a new boat from the "Rheinstreifenboot 2000" series, which is christened WSP 9. The boat, which is almost 18 meters long, has two engines with a total output of 1004 hp, giving it a top speed of 46 km/h.
673rd establishment of the "Psychosocial Support" team (PSU). The team, which consists of senior officers and police doctors, offers police officers help in the event of particularly stressful professional experiences such as fatal accidents. Years later, the PSU team's range of tasks is expanded to include support for traumatic private events.
674th Police Sportsman of the Year 1994 is awarded to senior police officer Michael Müntjes from Mülheim Police Headquarters, who became world champion swimmer and German senior champion and German police champion swimmer, and Nicole Ramm from the Brühl Riot Police Department V, who became European champion swimmer and German champion swimmer. Both athletes were honored by Interior Minister Schnoor.
675 Police applicants: While 9,100 young men and women applied for the police profession in 1993, the figure for 1994 is already around 12,000. A third of the applicants applied for direct entry into the higher service.
676 The Christmas bonus for police officers is considerably reduced. While a full 13th month's salary was paid until 1993, the payment is reduced to 50% from this year onwards.
677 Police Director Gerd Ax becomes the new head of the Higher State Police School (HLPS) "Carl Severing" in Münster. He takes over from Senior Police Director Heinz Ludwig Leding, who had held the post for almost six years.

1995

678. January 1. The "Dangerous Dog Ordinance NW" comes into force. The police now also have to deal with the question of whether owners of certain dog breeds classified as dangerous are required to keep them on a lead and muzzle.
679. March 26. The Schengen Implementation Agreement comes into force. This abolishes border controls in at least some of the participating countries. With the Schengen Information System (SIS), a data network is set up across national borders, with which the participating countries can now access the search databases of the other countries. Employees of German data stations can now access search alerts from France or Spain, for example.
680. April 4. Police officer shot dead. Police Superintendent Norbert Domnick, Heinsberg police, is killed in a gunfight with a bank robber. The bank robber is also killed.
681. 51-year-old Hartmut Rohmer, a lawyer from Neuss and Chief Criminal Director, becomes the new Director of the State Office of Criminal Investigation. He had previously worked as head of department at the State Criminal Police Office and subsequently as head of department for security and law enforcement at the Düsseldorf district government. Rohmer succeeds Helmut Brandt, who is retiring.
682 July 17. The term of office of Interior Minister Herbert Schnoor (SPD) comes to an end.  He is succeeded the following day by Franz-Josef Kniola (SPD). A trained stonemason, he studied social work, became active in the SPD and then initially worked as a lecturer at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts, before running a stonemasonry business until 1990. From 1990 to 1995, he was Minister for Urban Development and Transport until he took over as Minister of the Interior.
683 Opening of the training and education center for special units in Hemer / Hönnetal At a cost of DM 3.5 million, the most modern European center of its kind was created in Hemer with training buildings, shooting range, driving course, blasting practice area and obstacle course.
684 Phantom image creation undergoes a fundamental change. While the Minolta composite image method was previously used, in which faces were "assembled" using facial templates based on witness descriptions, ISIS computer software is now used. Although this also involves assembling facial features according to witness descriptions, this is now done electronically and with a larger repertoire of options for individually adapting the faces to the descriptions. The procedure is used by the "Visual Search Aids" department of the State Office of Criminal Investigation.
685 By the end of 1995, 7,500 workstations in the guard and changeover service are equipped with computers. With regard to the planned 12,000 computers, this corresponds to a fulfillment rate of 62%. So far, 51 million marks have been spent on hardware, software (MS Windows) and training.
686. In 1995, police officers in NRW used firearms in 41 cases: 20 times against persons, three times against property and 18 times as warning shots. All cases were considered to be legally unobjectionable and in the majority of cases, the lives of the police officers involved were at risk.
687 An internal police study comes to the conclusion that the daily handling of death leaves deep scars on many death investigators. More than half of those surveyed stated that they occasionally think about their work in their free time, a quarter even think about it often and 0.6% always think about it. Around 70% of those surveyed consider the psychological strain of working with children's bodies to be quite or even extremely high. Examinations and post-mortems on corpses with a high degree of decomposition are also perceived as very stressful, whereas working on corpses in general or especially on the corpses of elderly people who have died of natural causes is largely unstressful. According to the study, post-traumatic stress is equally severe and difficult to recognize among death investigators.
688th At the International German Police Championships for Service Dog Handlers in Krefeld, the team from North Rhine-Westphalia takes first place. Not only did all 16 state police forces take part in the competition, but also teams from the USA, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. The judges assessed the tracking work, obedience and protection service.
689th Best Police Sportsman. Police Sportswoman of the Year 1995 is Police Champion Frauke Stephan from the Cologne Police Department as European doubles tennis champion. Police Sportsman of the Year is Police Master Ingo Frantzki from the Düsseldorf Police Department. He had become European team triathlon champion.

1996

January 690: Police President Jürgen Roters sets up a counseling team for homosexual police officers at the Cologne Police Department. Two officers from the Criminal Investigation Department "Prevention", who already have extensive experience in working with homosexual associations, are now available as contact persons.
691. January 16. Fatal use of firearms. At a train station in Cologne, a Turkish man stabs his wife with a butcher's knife. A police officer shoots the man, fatally wounding him.  The wife is seriously injured and taken to hospital.
692. January 16. Fatal shot in Bünde: While trying to calm down a mentally ill man who is threatening family members with a knife, the man suddenly stabs a police officer. An officer shoots and fatally shoots the man.
693rd life-saving improvement suggestion. Police inspector Kay-Jürgen Schröder from the Münster highway police receives a prize of more than DM 10,000 from Interior Minister Kniola for a suggestion for improvement. Schröder had
Schröder had suggested that lane narrowing at highway construction sites should not begin at the construction site, but 200 m beforehand. During a nationwide test run, it was found that both the number of accidents and the number of fatalities at highway construction sites could be more than halved.
694 In February, the EMMI project is launched in the Meuse-Rhine region between Belgium, the Netherlands and North Rhine-Westphalia. This is a police cooperation in which a joint data system is operated between the regional liaison offices in Aachen, Mönchengladbach, Maastricht, Roermond, Eupen and Genk, which makes it possible to quickly and easily carry out resident registration and owner inquiries across national borders. In addition, the computer-networked liaison offices can exchange search information and hold video conferences.
695 On February 5, the study commissioned by the Police Command and Staff College on "Police and Foreigners" is presented to the press. The study concludes that assaults by police officers against foreigners are neither "mere isolated cases" nor a "systematic pattern of behavior". The causes of assaults are seen to be less the individual attitudes of officers and more structural problems such as the overworking of officers in conurbations with high levels of illegal immigration, frustration due to the perceived lack of success and consequences of police action, language problems and provocation by foreign citizens and general dissatisfaction due to management deficiencies, rotating shifts and a lack of preparation and follow-up for operations.
March 696. Violent Kurdish demonstrations. After a demonstration by the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in Dortmund is banned by both the Chief of Police and the Administrative Court, thousands of demonstrators from Germany and abroad nevertheless travel to Dortmund. There are clashes between police and demonstrators in the city, at the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands and on the highways. Despite a deployment of almost 3,000 officers in Dortmund and more than 8,600 officers nationwide, the massive violence practiced by the Kurds resulted in 40 police officers being injured. Some of the demonstrators had beaten the officers with clubs and batons. Cooperation with the Dutch and Belgian police proved to be inadequate during the operation.
697. April 1. The riot police are fundamentally changed. Whereas previously, the police squads were grouped together under the umbrella of the riot police directorate, they are now attached to large district police authorities, some of which are equipped with one and some with two riot police squads (BPH). A total of 18 police units will subsequently be stationed in Bochum, Wuppertal, Cologne, Dortmund, Bielefeld, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg, Bonn, Münster, Essen, Recklinghausen and Mönchengladbach. In Bochum, Wuppertal and Cologne, a command group and a technical emergency unit (TEE) are also set up.
698. April 8. Death by police weapon. A mentally disturbed 51-year-old man in Hürth threatens his parents and the police officers called to the scene with two sabres. He is killed in an attempt to incapacitate the man with shots to the arm.
699. April 11. Major alarm for the police and fire department in Düsseldorf. Welding work on a ceiling of the airport building causes a major fire that spreads rapidly. 17 people die in the flames, including several in an elevator, and numerous others are injured.
700 The Münster and Recklinghausen police headquarters begin to introduce the IGVP (Integrated Police Process Management Program) software. The program uses a large number of electronic forms to record and process reports. At the same time, it is linked to a database in which the data of all criminal complaints is stored. This will provide a large research pool for police investigations in the future.
701. the first state-wide position of a victim protection officer is created at the Düsseldorf police force.  The role of this officer will include informing victims of crime about their rights, providing them with initial emotional support and arranging further help to deal with the consequences of the crime.
702 The police introduce new evaluation guidelines. According to these guidelines, points from 1 ("Does not meet requirements") to 5 ("Exceeds requirements to a particularly high degree") are to be awarded for the performance of officers. The fact that under the old appraisal system the majority of all civil servants were assessed at the top end of the scale is to be countered by a quota system for appraisals under the new guidelines. Accordingly, 4 points may only be awarded to 25% of all civil servants and 5 points only to 5% of all civil servants. The evaluation guidelines will subsequently become a constant source of dissatisfaction among police officers.
703 The first 15 Opel Vectra B patrol cars are purchased. The highway police also receive the first Opel Omega models. The Vectra patrol cars have 1.8 liter engines with 115 hp. For the first time, air conditioning is now also available in the patrol cars. Of the approximately 8,000 police vehicles in the country, 2,591 are Opel Vectra A models, which are now to be gradually replaced by the new Vectra generation.
704. June 10. After a five-hour trial, the Cologne police obtain the voluntary surrender of two hijackers. The hijackers wanted the hijacking to be understood as an "address of solidarity" to the Pope's assassin Ali Agca, who had been imprisoned in Italy since 1981.
705. July 27. After a car chase, the police in Münster stop an 18-year-old car thief. During the arrest, he is shot dead for reasons that are initially unexplained. The police set up a special task force to investigate the case. Result: accidental shooting.
706 The water police are equipped with two new boats. The boats, which are handed over in Duisburg harbor by Interior Minister Kniola, each have two 500 hp engines that allow the vessels to reach a top speed of 46 km/h. The steering system is fully electronic. The steering system is fully electronic and the steering wheel in the new boats has been replaced by a modern joystick. With their special explosion protection equipment, the boats can also enter potentially explosive areas and, thanks to their daylight radar, can also operate in poor lighting conditions.
707 The Krefeld police are returning to their bicycle patrols, which were abolished years ago. After a short time, the patrols with the 15 newly acquired bikes are already reporting various successes, such as arrests in heavy traffic, which would not have been possible without the maneuverable bikes.
708 The State School of Criminal Investigation becomes the Police Training Institute (PFI) Neuss.
709. operators of alarm systems must in future pay DM 170 if a police patrol has to drive to a false alarm. The basis for this is an amendment to the administrative fee regulations. In Düsseldorf - as an example - there were 2,895 trips by the police to false alarms in 1995 alone.
710 The police establish their own Internet presence. The State Office of Criminal Investigation and the Gütersloh district police authority are pioneers with their own homepages.
711 An amendment to the Telecommunications Act (TKG) requires telecommunications service providers to create customer files and make the names and addresses of connection holders available to the police authorities via a regulatory authority at any time on request. In future, the police will thus be able to automatically identify the owners of telephone lines.
712. In April, 19 police officers from North Rhine-Westphalia will be serving in Bosnia for several months as part of a UN mission together with police officers from other federal states. All of them are part of an international police force. Incidents such as a hand grenade being thrown under a police vehicle or officers being threatened with firearms show just how dangerous this mission is.
713. use of firearms: In 30 cases, officers used firearms in a legally permissible manner, 12 of which were warning shots. Three people were killed by the use of firearms. The firearm is used unlawfully nine times. Twelve unintentional shots were fired, killing one person and injuring three. When a female officer used a firearm on August 15, the officer herself was killed and another officer was injured.  The 34-year-old police sergeant Jutta Greb had accidentally hit the officer while trying to help a colleague against two burglars. The mother of four children fatally injures herself when another shot is fired from her gun, apparently unintentionally.
714. In 1996, there are 2,686 traffic accidents involving service vehicles. More than 57% of these accidents were the driver's own fault. Approximately one in ten accidents occurred in connection with special/right-of-way driving. One accident occurred for every 56,000 kilometers driven with official vehicles.
715th Police Sportswoman of the Year 1996 is Police Champion Nicole Ramm from the Cologne Police Department, a multiple German Police Champion in swimming. Klaus Balkenhol is named Police Sportsman of the Year as Olympic team dressage champion.
716th State Director of Criminal Investigation Rudi Justen retires. His successor Enno Brillo is inaugurated by Interior Minister Kniola. Brillo had previously held management positions at the State Office of Criminal Investigation and the Ministry of the Interior.

1997

717 The state concludes a contract with Deutsche Bahn AG to transport uniformed police officers on trains free of charge. The only exceptions are some long-distance trains such as the ICE. The purpose of the measure is to increase the sense of security among rail passengers by having police officers on board. Numerous local transport companies in the cities and districts also conclude similar contracts with the police.  
718 The police training institutes in Bochum and Wuppertal are dissolved on October 1, 1997.  
719 The state government decides to disband the police music corps.
720 A police museum is opened in the former railroad station in Salzkotten in the district of Paderborn. Visitors will find 25,000 exhibits from the "Deutsches Polizeimuseum e.V." association.
721. In 1997, there are 23 police officers in NRW who do not have German citizenship. The number of those who have a migration background but acquired German citizenship before joining the police force is not known. NRW intends to step up its efforts to recruit foreigners into the police service in future.
722. April 1. Klaus Steffenhagen is the first trade union leader to become police chief in North Rhine-Westphalia. Steffenhagen was a police officer until 1993, but then took over the union presidency on a full-time basis. He is inaugurated into his new office at Hagen police headquarters by Interior Minister Kniola. Steffenhagen replaces Günter Steckhan, who has held the office since 1981.
723rd The Cologne police provide strong support for the 15 Tatort episodes to be filmed in Cologne over the next three years. For the crime series, starring the actors Klaus J. Behrendt and Dietmar Bär as detectives Max Ballauf and Freddy Schenk, police officers will also be provided on a voluntary basis as extras, as well as uniforms for the actors and service vehicles. The assistance is intended to be budget-neutral and help ensure that the crime cases are portrayed as realistically as possible.
724 The NRW Higher Administrative Court decides that the injunction issued by a police authority against a radar detector was lawful. The authority had issued the injunction after a citizen had warned other drivers of the police near a radar measuring point. The reasons for the ruling state that police speed measurements serve public safety and that the performance of this preventive police task is impaired by a radar detector.
July 725: Minister of the Interior Kniola puts the new FELIS operations control system into operation at the most modern operations control center in NRW, at the Essen Police Department. FELIS is to be used to coordinate operations more quickly in future. The program also offers action checklists for a wide range of action types (from A for alert to Z for train accident). In addition, queries in other data systems, such as owner or search queries, can be carried out from FELIS without leaving FELIS.
726 A study commissioned by the state in 1993 from the economic consulting firm WIBERA on the organization of police shifts came to the following conclusions: The daily shift strength fluctuates considerably, without any recognizable reasons for this that have to do with the workload. It would be more sensible to distribute staff hours according to periods with low and high workloads. There is no complete documentation of hours throughout the country. The 1.28 million man-hours of overtime could be avoided by drawing up shift rosters in line with the system.
727. September 1. Hubert Wimber becomes the first police chief in Münster from the ranks of the "Green" party.
728. a child-friendly interview room, the only one of its kind in Germany, is set up at Cologne police headquarters to save sexually abused children from having to undergo stressful multiple interviews with the police. The room is equipped with toys, stuffed animals and pictures to reduce anxiety. The children can be observed by other parties involved in the proceedings via a Venetian mirror (transparent on one side) without the children noticing and without third parties being able to influence the children. Questions can be transmitted unnoticed via a PC monitor.
729 A raid involving 400 officers searches the premises of Islamic communities and associations in Cologne and Düsseldorf, among other places. Several suspects are accused of murdering fellow believers, among other offenses.
730. September 15. The advertising and selection service of the North Rhine-Westphalian police now presents itself on the Internet in order to recruit more young people for the police profession.
731. the first two service dogs in Europe complete their training as arson detection dogs at the state police school for service dog handlers in Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock. The Belgian shepherd dogs, just over a year old, sniff out accelerants at crime scenes even under unfavorable conditions.
732. September 17. Death of several NRW police officers in helicopter crash. 12 people die in a UN helicopter crash in Bosnia-Herzegovina, including Dr. Georg Stiebler, Chief Police Director of North Rhine-Westphalia, who was on board as part of a UN mission. The helicopter crashed into a mountain massif at an altitude of 1,700 m in dense fog.
733. November 5. The new sports decree comes into force. All police officers on field duty are now obliged to take part in official sport without age restrictions. If possible, sport should be offered during duty hours and should not be less than two hours per month.
734 NRW police expenditure on information and communication technology reached a record level in 1997. The telephone systems were upgraded to ISDN standard at a cost of 29 million marks. 7 million marks were spent on the final development of the CN-Pol network (internal police telephone network). Control centre technology cost 6 million marks, and the modernization of criminal procedure telecommunications monitoring cost 3.7 million marks. 10.6 million marks were spent on computers - the total number of computer workstations has now been increased to 17,000.
735. traffic accidents in NRW in 1997: one traffic accident registered by the police every 62 seconds, one accident victim (killed/injured) every five minutes, one hit-and-run accident every 6 minutes, one child killed in an accident every 45 minutes, one accident fatality every 7.5 hours.

1998

736. January 1. From now on, there will only be police music corps in the Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Wuppertal police headquarters. The musicians from the Essen and Cologne locations are to be transferred to the other locations. The corps in Dortmund and Wuppertal will each have 35 police musicians, while the corps in Düsseldorf will have 34.  In the long term, music corps are to remain only in Dortmund and Düsseldorf.
737. January 1. Reorganization of the helicopter squadrons. The "Rhineland" and "Westphalia" police helicopter squadrons are renamed the police aviation squadron.  The helicopter squadron is incorporated into the State Office of Criminal Investigation as part of the "Operational Support" department. The helicopter squadrons were previously under the control of the district governments. The Düsseldorf and Dortmund properties continue to be used by what are now the air task forces.
738. January 1. Reorganization of the freeway police. The freeway police are reorganized by circular decree. The previous name "Verkehrsüberwachungsbereitschaft (VÜB)" is changed to "Autobahnpolizei". The highway police remain under the control of the district governments. Freeway police inspectorates are formed with freeway police main stations (APHW) and freeway police stations (APW). In addition to the guard duty groups, the main station also includes a traffic service (VD) and a task force (ET), which is responsible for combating crime on freeways, rest areas and parking lots. Apart from traffic offenses, however, no criminal offenses are processed by the VD itself, but are handed over to the relevant district police authorities. A traffic commissioner's office (VK) is responsible for processing traffic offenses.
739. January 12. A car driver is killed and a police officer seriously injured in the legs and chest in a shootout in a highway parking lot near Hünxe.
740. February 28. Wolf Günter Immisch, director of the riot police, is retired by Interior Minister Kniola. His successor is Senior Police Director Günter Möllers, previously the permanent representative of the President of the Police Command and Staff College. Immisch and his wife want to emigrate to Brazil after retirement.
741 The German Police Union in the German Civil Service Association publishes statistics on deaths in the police force. According to these statistics, 99 police officers were killed by lawbreakers across the country between 1945 and 1996. 300 were killed in accidents on duty and a further 48 died from illnesses contracted on duty.
742. April 6. In Düsseldorf, 37-year-old Mile Petrovic is shot dead by a special task force after he tried to evade arrest at gunpoint. A hand grenade is found within reach of the man.
743. April 17. Based on an order from the Federal Minister of the Interior, the Federal Criminal Police Office begins to set up a DNA analysis file (DAD).
744. April 20. The RAF disbands
745. May 11. The first uniformed bicycle squadron takes up its duties in Düsseldorf. The number of "bicycle policemen" grows to nine officers by the following year.  
746. June 9. Dr. Fritz Behrens becomes the new state Minister of the Interior. Behrens is born in Göttingen on October 12, 1948. In 1976, he receives his doctorate in law from the University of Göttingen and passes his second state examination a year later. He initially worked in the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia, then became personal advisor to the Minister of the Interior, Dr. Schnoor, and was head of the office of Minister President Rau from 1983 to 1986. After a further nine years as District President in Düsseldorf, he was appointed Minister of Justice in 1995 and Minister of the Interior in June 1998. For a few months, he simultaneously held the Interior and Justice portfolios. After retiring as Minister of the Interior, Behrens remained a member of the state parliament until 2012.
747 Reorganization of the "Special Forces" subdivisions: A hierarchical level is removed and the subdivisions are now divided into three Special Operations Command (SEK) commands, two Mobile Operations Command (MEK) commands, a Technical Operations Group (TEG) and a Negotiation Group (VG). In addition, a second senior civil servant is added to the respective subdivisions as head of the command center
March 748. During a Castor transport to the Ahaus interim storage facility, 30,000 police officers are deployed to secure the transport. 400 demonstrators are arrested in Ahaus.  The Borken district police authority subsequently initiates 395 fine proceedings and 118 criminal proceedings against demonstrators. The public prosecutor's office also opens 30 investigations against police officers accused of committing bodily harm and deprivation of liberty during the operation.
749 An investigation concludes that 26 people were killed by shots fired from police weapons between 1976 and 1997.
750 The Central Police Technical Services, together with various district police authorities, develop a special vehicle for dangerous goods checks. The vehicles, five of which are to be delivered to various police authorities in 1998, cost around 100,000 marks each and are equipped with a laptop, fax machine, photocopier, printer, radio telephone and technical inspection equipment, among other things.
751st Change of management at the Central Police Technical Services. Police Director Burkhard Gies becomes the new head. He replaces Chief Police Director Robert Dörr, who had held the post since 1991.

1999

752 Police officers and other public sector employees are at the bottom end of the scale when it comes to vacation pay. While the wood processing industry in Westphalia-Lippe, for example, pays over 3,000 marks and the printing industry still pays 2,600 marks, only 500 to 650 marks are paid in the public sector.
753. March 25. In Ennigerloh, a mentally ill 44-year-old man tries to kill his sister with an axe during an argument. One of the police officers called to the scene shoots and fatally shoots the man.
754. April 22. Police officer killed. During an operation against drug dealers, 45-year-old police officer Horst Fiedler is shot dead in Solingen. His 32-year-old colleague is shot. The perpetrator is arrested three days later.
May 755. Two dead in shipwreck. Two people are killed and ten others injured in the explosion of the freighter "Avanti", which is about to be loaded with 1,500 tons of light petrol at a landing stage in Dormagen. One crew member dies when he jumps into the Rhine and is later rescued five kilometers downstream; another is later found burned to death in the cabin of the ship. The crew of a ship anchored next to the ill-fated freighter managed to escape to safety at the last minute. After the explosion, a large pool of petrol spreads across the Rhine. The water police close the Rhine between Dormagen and Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth to shipping for many hours.
756 Dissolution of the police music corps and establishment of a NRW state police orchestra at the NRW Police Training Directorate in Wuppertal.
757. August 1. Homicide of a police officer: Passers-by in Hagen inform the police because a man is approaching children in the street in a suspicious manner. When a patrol car crew arrives to check on the man, a 24-year-old Turkish drug dealer, he suddenly pulls out a firearm and shoots 37-year-old police chief Michael Erkelenz in the chest. Michael Erkelenz succumbs to his serious injuries in hospital six days later. Shortly after the shooting, the perpetrator shot a 41-year-old, completely uninvolved teacher on her terrace near the scene of the crime and then shot himself in the street.
758 The European police authority EUROPOL begins its work. The authority, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, is responsible for combating cross-border terrorism, child pornography and counterfeiting, among other things. In addition, personal data from 15 member states is stored in the EUROPOL database.
759. November 24. The 25-year-old perpetrator of a petrol station robbery is arrested in Geldern. When he suddenly flees, he is fatally shot in the head by an officer.
760. end of November. The now 100th anti-drug disco takes place in Essen's Gruga Hall. The anti-drug disco, which costs DM 30,000, is intended to teach the 8,000 young visitors about addiction and drugs as part of a music and dance event. According to Interior Minister Behrens, who introduces the event, the series of events, which is organized by the police, is intended to convey the topic in "youth-friendly packaging" and "without pointing a finger".
761. December 2. Under the leadership of the Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office, around 900 police officers, including special task forces, search the premises and quarters of "Hell's Angels Germany" and confiscate weapons and explosives. 22 people are arrested.
December 762: After a shooting in front of a Siegen nightclub, several SEK officers storm the apartment of a 45-year-old suspect. In a scuffle with his father, an officer says a shot is fired from his service weapon. The bullet fatally hits the suspect.
763. December 22. A police sniper shoots a hostage-taker, 46-year-old Adnan H., who had been holed up for 50 hours with three hostages in the Landeszentralbank in Aachen.

Figure 7: A police boat on the Rhine at Emmerich near the Dutch border in 1995 (source: Jochen Kleinstabel)

2000s                           

The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York also cast a shadow over European security policy. The federal states and intelligence services now work more closely together to combat terrorism. Extensive catalogs of measures are drawn up. For oppressed and abused women in domestic violence situations, the North Rhine-Westphalian police have now been given an effective instrument in the form of § 34a of the Police Act. In cases of domestic violence, police officers can expel the aggressors from the home and issue a ten-day ban on returning to the home in order to give the abused person a window of opportunity to seek external help. The police profession in NRW is being upgraded by the abolition of the intermediate service. Access to the police profession now only takes place via a course of study at a university of applied sciences. In a comparison of all federal states, NRW is in a sad last place. Nowhere else in Germany are there fewer police officers in relation to the size of the population than here. Among the numerous TV documentary programs, the cinematic missions of the Bochum police officers "Toto" and "Harry" stand out in the public's favor. On the streets, the public has to get used to a visually different police force on several occasions. For example, the color of the patrol cars in the country first changes from green and white to green and silver and a few years later to blue and silver. The beige-green uniforms, which had been designed in the 1970s by fashion czar Heinz Oestergaard, now give way to dark blue uniforms - as is common almost nationwide.

2000

764. February 27. In Remscheid, 26-year-old policewoman Kirsten Späinghaus-Flick is stabbed to death while on duty. The Macedonian perpetrator had previously abused his wife. Ten months later, the Wuppertal District Court sentences the perpetrator to 12 years in prison and committal to a closed psychiatric ward.
January 765. An apparently confused 52-year-old farmer in Dreiborn, Euskirchen district, first shoots at a man with a shotgun in mid-January and then at a police officer who was called to the scene. The police officer returns fire and hits the attacker in the pelvis. Several blood vessels are injured. The man dies of his injuries on February 20.
766 The Wuppertal Regional Court sentences a drug dealer to life imprisonment. In April 1999, the man had shot a policewoman and seriously injured another officer when they stormed his apartment.
February 767. The introduction of "Decentralized Shift Management" (DSM) is regulated in a decree. In future, computer software is to be used to adapt the distribution of police officers' duty times as sensibly as possible to the requirements of the service. At the same time, the interests of the officers concerned are to be taken into account as far as possible. The DSM is to be introduced nationwide by the end of 2002.
April 768. The VICLAS (Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System) database is set up at the State Office of Criminal Investigation. Case data on violent crimes is collected in this database. In future, officers in the "Operative Case Analysis" department will be able to access a large database for research purposes when creating offender profiles and identifying crime links.
769. May 8. Police advertising campaign. A nationwide campaign is launched at the Cinemaxx cinema center in Essen to promote direct entry into the senior police service and to recruit prospective candidates. In addition to the inspector of the police and other high-ranking representatives of the NRW police force, the well-known TV comedian Atze Schröder will also be taking part in the event as an advertising drawcard. Further events are planned, such as a police graduation party with well-known music stars to attract young people to the police force.
770. the police motorcycles in NRW, BMW R 850 RT vehicles, are now equipped with a blue light system (front and rear) and siren.
771. June 14. First in Dortmund, a little later in Datteln, a criminal shoots at two patrol car crews. Officers Yvonne Hachtkemper, Mathias Larisch von Woitowitz and Thomas Goretzki die from their gunshot wounds, another officer survives her serious injuries.
June 772. The inspector of the North Rhine-Westphalian police, Ulrich Dugas, retires. He is succeeded by Senior Police Director Dieter Glietsch. Glietsch joined the NRW police force in 1964 as a police constable. After 21 years of service in Cologne, he moved on to various positions of responsibility in the Ministry of the Interior and, in the meantime, once again in Cologne.
773. July 27. Ten people - mainly Jewish immigrants from CIS countries - are injured, some of them seriously, in an explosives attack at an S-Bahn station on Ackerstrasse in Düsseldorf. A woman five months pregnant loses her unborn child in the attack.  It was not until 17 years later, in 2017, that a suspect, a 34-year-old man from the neo-Nazi scene at the time of the attack, was identified. During a prison stay, he had bragged to a fellow inmate about the details of the crime.
774. traffic accidents involving the police: In 2000, there were around 3,000 traffic accidents involving the police. Two thirds of the accidents were the fault of the police officers involved.
775. the irritant spraying devices, which were previously filled with CN gas, are now filled with pepper extract. The CN charges, which have been in use since the early 1980s, gasified after impact. This resulted in respiratory and eye irritation not only for the person hit, but also for the police officers deployed. This was particularly detrimental when transporting detainees who had been shot with CN. This risk does not exist with the new loads, which consist of chayenne or chili pepper.
776 NRW launches an action program against xenophobia. The program includes police home visits to known right-wing extremists and the establishment of investigation teams. It also calls for a nationwide "right-wing violent offenders" file.
777 The GESA 2000 computer application is introduced. This program is intended to eliminate the frequent complications that arise during the registration and processing of mass arrests of people at major events. GESA 2000 makes it possible to systematically record those arrested and to research their whereabouts and processing status at any time.
778 In the so-called "Schmierwurst" trial, five officers from the Oer-Erkenschwick police station are acquitted by the Bochum Regional Court of the charge of having committed bribery in the mid-1990s. They were suspected of having shown leniency to truck drivers during truck checks in exchange for sausage and meat products.
779. December 4. From now on, the flying personnel of the police aviation squadron will be on duty in continuous alternating shifts. This means that helicopters with thermal imaging cameras and searchlights are now available at night. The pilots are equipped with night vision goggles that amplify the available light 125,000 times. The function of an "operational technology" officer is introduced in the aircraft, who, as the third man on board, is responsible in particular for operating the thermal imaging camera and a video system for recordings.
780. December 16. The Dortmund police encircle Nazi opponents for several hours during a demonstration against right-wing violence. After a complaint is filed against the police, the public prosecutor's office in Essen decides in 2002 that the police action was lawful.

2001

781 Interior Minister Behrends bans the rocker club "Hell's Angels Germany Chapter Düsseldorf" and initiates extensive searches of club members.
782. March 7. In Cologne, a 25-year-old Turkish citizen is shot dead after threatening several officers of a task force with a gas pistol at a traffic light. Four officers get out of the police vehicle and fatally shoot the man.
March 783. Around 2,600 police officers from NRW are involved in the Castor transport through North Rhine-Westphalia to Lower Saxony. The officers are not only deployed on North Rhine-Westphalian territory, but also at the nuclear repository in Gorleben, which is characterized by short periods of sleep and cramped accommodation in containers.
784 Introduction of so-called deformation bullets for service weapons. Previously only used by special units, these bullets mushroom when they hit a body and thus have an effect that renders the police officer incapable of acting or fleeing.
785. June 14. In Olpe, Sauerland, a 27-year-old man, apparently mentally disturbed, is shot dead after he attacked officers with a screwdriver and could not be stopped even by a shot in the arm.
786. July 1. Accidental death on the highway. 33-year-old police sergeant Heiko Emmerich is killed during a traffic control operation on the A45 freeway near Dortmund. A driver had lost control of his vehicle, skidded into the patrol car and also hit the officer, who was outside the vehicle.
787 With effect from 1.8.01, the insignia on the epaulettes of police officers is redefined as follows by a circular from the Minister of the Interior:

Police master trainee                      No badge
Candidate police commissioner      No badge
Police master                                  2 green stars
Senior police officer                        3 green stars
Chief Constable                              4 green stars
Police commissioner                      1 silver star
Police superintendent                    2 silver stars
Police Chief Superintendent A11   3 silver stars
Police Chief Superintendent A12   4 silver-colored stars
First Chief Superintendent of Police 5 silver-colored stars
Police Councillor                            1 gold-colored star
Police Chief Superintendent          2 gold-colored stars
Police Director                               3 gold-colored stars
Senior Police Director                    4 gold-colored stars
Director of the riot police                1 gold-colored star with oak leaves
Inspector of Police                         2 gold-colored stars with oak leaves
 

788 After the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11, the EU Commission developed a comprehensive roadmap to combat terrorism. Intelligence services and police are to work more closely together in future, a list of potential terrorist organizations is to be drawn up, assets suspected of being terrorist are to be frozen under easier conditions and the reintroduction of internal border controls is also to be examined. In addition, EUROPOL and the national public prosecutor's offices and immigration offices are to be given access to the Schengen Information System (search system).
789 The Ministry of the Interior is to set up a database on gatherings of right-wing extremist groups. This database will be used to determine the conditions with which the police have been able to prevent Nazi meetings and the extent to which the courts have used their discretionary powers.
790 The Counter-Terrorism Act introduces Section 100g into the Code of Criminal Procedure. Among other things, the provision now allows the police to send a "silent text message" to suspects' cell phones in order to track the location of the devices. The procedure is to be used where the suspects cannot be located because they do not use their device themselves and therefore do not produce any telecommunications data.
791. October 25. For the first time in Germany, a street is named after a police officer killed in the line of duty. 26 years after the crime on May 9, 1975 and only a few hundred meters from the scene of the crime, the new Cologne police headquarters is now located on Walter-Pauli-Ring. In their opening speeches, Police Commissioner Klaus Steffenhagen and Lord Mayor Fritz Schramma point out that the name Walter Pauli stands for all other police officers killed in the line of duty.
792nd Dispute between the Minister of the Interior and the German Police Union. A public dispute arises between the Minister of the Interior, Dr. Behrens, and the chairman of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt. Wendt had claimed that the Minister of the Interior was withholding a study that gave a damning verdict on the new control models. In fact, he neither withheld the study nor did it make negative statements on the subject. The responsible researcher at the University of Marburg, Dr. Hans-Jürgen Lange, supports the Minister and explains that Wendt is making statements "against his better judgment".

2002

793rd New ID card. From 2002, all police officers receive a new ID card in credit card format. It replaces the previous green paper ID cards.
794. January 1. With the introduction of § 34a of the North Rhine-Westphalian Police Act (PolG NW), police officers who are called to domestic violence incidents now have the option of issuing not only an expulsion order, but also a ten-day ban on re-entering the home after the expulsion order.  
795th Nazi police subject of police studies. Interior Minister Behrens decrees that the role of the police in the Third Reich is to become part of the curriculum for police students at the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration.
796 The police have to deal with new traffic regulations. For example, an additional sign can now be used to open up hard shoulders on freeways as additional lanes during peak traffic times. Furthermore, radar warning and jamming devices are now prohibited. A ban can be punished by the police with a fine of 75 euros. There are also four points in Flensburg.
797 More personnel after attacks. In response to the global threat situation following the attacks on the New York World Trade Center, the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution have been given 129 additional posts for investigations and evaluations. 43 of these are for highly qualified system technicians.
798th Introduction of the two-tier career path: All police trainees in North Rhine-Westphalia are only recruited to the higher service. Training for the intermediate service will be abolished.  By 2010, all positions in the intermediate service are to be transferred to those in the higher service.
799 Dieter Wehe becomes the new inspector of the police in NRW. After joining the police force, he was initially a patrol officer in Cologne and Dortmund. In the higher service, he worked as a squad leader in Dortmund and as a specialist instructor and platoon leader in Selm. After his promotion to the higher ranks, he became head of the protection area in Wuppertal and Hamm and head of training for the riot police, before being entrusted with setting up the police academy in Brandenburg after German reunification. After further responsible positions in Dortmund and Münster, he became Head of Department at the Police Leadership Academy before being appointed Inspector.  He succeeds Dieter Glietsch (SPD), who was elected Berlin Police President by the Berlin House of Representatives on May 16.
800. April 5. Police fatal shooting in Düsseldorf. A fleeing armed bank robber is shot dead during his pursuit by a plainclothes police officer after he and his colleague had initially tried in vain to overpower the man and had also fired a warning shot. The robber had pointed his own gun at the officers before firing.
801. May 6. The first German-Dutch citizens' contact point is set up in Herzogenrath, where both German and Dutch police officers work. The contact point is located exactly on the national border in the border towns of Herzogenrath (Germany) and Kerkrade (Netherlands).
802. May 11. Six Cologne police officers are suspected of beating up a 31-year-old man arrested at their station. The man subsequently fell into a coma and died a few days later. Around two years later, the six officers were charged with dangerous bodily harm.  The officers were subsequently given suspended prison sentences of between 6 and 12 months.
803. June 9. The use of so-called IMSI catchers, with which the police can locate cell phones, is given a legal basis in the Code of Criminal Procedure by the German Bundestag. Previously, IMSI catchers had been used by the police without a legal basis.
804. June 20. The Federal Constitutional Court rules that the police may continue to store the personal data of suspects even if the person is acquitted in court.
June 805. The German team wins the European Police Football Championship for the third time. At the tournament, which was organized by the Rotterdam police in the Netherlands, five police officers from NRW were also represented in the German team: Ingo Gebhardt (LR Bergisch Gladbach), Marco Held (PP Wuppertal), captain Jörg Silberbach (PP Bochum), Rainer Borgmeister (LR Gütersloh) and Mirko Jerenko (PP Düsseldorf).
806. June 30. Prof. Dr. Rainer Schulte retires as President of the Police Leadership Academy at the end of the month. He had held the office for 12 years. He will be succeeded by Klaus Neidhardt, who previously headed the "Police Management" department at the academy. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Neidhardt played a key role in the investigations against the terrorists on German soil.
807 July 5. New police organization law. The former designation "Oberkreisdirektor als KPB" is now changed to "Landrat als KPB". It also contains regulations for the deployment of foreign police forces in NRW and North Rhine-Westphalian police officers abroad.
808. July 28. Police officer shot dead. In Bonn-Bad Godesberg, 40-year-old police inspector Gerd Höllige and his colleague Wolfgang K. are called to a domestic disturbance. A gun is stolen from one of the two officers. Höllige is killed and the second officer is seriously injured.  
July 809. Recruitment drive. The police write to 100 top sports clubs and provide them with advertising material in order to recruit new police recruits within the clubs.
810. August 13. NRW officers help with the Elbe floods. A police unit from the riot police in Bochum and police units from Essen and other NRW cities are deployed to Saxony. There, in Saxony-Anhalt and in the Czech Republic, large areas have been flooded by the Elbe and police are urgently needed everywhere.
August 811. The police training institute "Carl Severing" is commissioned by decree to develop a training program for amok situations. The background to this is the killing spree by a pupil at a school in Erfurt in 2002, which left 17 people dead. By September of that year, 400 IF trainers and specialist teachers from the police training institute had already been trained.
812. August 19. Attempted murder in police station. A 26-year-old man enters the police station in Lünen early in the morning and shoots the officer on duty five times with an antique revolver. He manages to escape under the guard table and escapes the attack unharmed. The shooter can be identified some time later through DNA analysis.
813 End of October. Interior Minister Behrens hands over the new building for the Central Police Technical Services (ZPD). The 51 million euro, 142 m long building in Duisburg's inner harbour houses a modern service center in which the development and procurement of technical equipment such as computers, radio technology and service vehicles is organized. The 450 employees in the new building are also responsible for equipping NRW police officers with uniforms and supporting telecommunications surveillance in investigations.
814 From November. Acquisition of the first leased vehicles (VW Passat TDI) The vehicles have extensive electronic driving aids such as an electronic stability program (ESP) or a brake assistant. The old rotary pull switch for the blue light and siren is replaced by a push-button control.
815. with immediate effect, the police vehicles are repainted from green and white to green and silver
816. a pilot seminar "Introductory training for investigating officers" is launched at the Police Training Institute in Neuss, in which police officers transferring from the security police to the criminal investigation department are prepared for their new job in a six-month training course. In future, all those transferring to the criminal investigation department will have to undergo this training.
817 New compulsory stop system for motor vehicles. In the search for a means of stopping vehicles whose drivers do not react to stop signals, the police decide on the so-called stop stick. This is an elongated foam body into which hollow nails are inserted, which drill into the tires of the vehicle to be stopped when it passes over them and allow the tire air to escape. The stop sticks are thrown onto the road in front of the vehicles and can be pulled off the road again immediately with a strap so that pursuing patrol cars do not also suffer tire damage.
818. video surveillance in traffic. In Münster, the first example of a ProVida bike is used for testing. It is a motorcycle with civilian paintwork that is equipped with the modern video system "Proof Video Data System". It allows distance and speed measurements to be taken in flowing traffic and produces video recordings over the entire measurement distance.
819) The title "Director of the Riot Police" is replaced by "Director of the Institute for Police Training".
820 Officers who regularly work in the field now receive their own personally assigned protective vests. The vests, which are not only bullet-proof but also stab-proof, weigh only 1.5 kg.  The manufacturer, Second Chance, completes delivery of the 33,000 vests in 2003.
821 Bochum patrol officers Torsten Heim and Thomas Weinkauf become known as "Toto and Harry" in a SAT1 report from the "24 Stunden" series. The report arouses such great interest among television audiences that the work of the two officers is shown as a series on SAT1 from then on. Even 10 years later, interest in the work of the two Bochum series heroes remains unbroken among television viewers.

2003

822 After the Riot Police Directorate is dissolved, the Institute for Police Training and Further Training (IAF) is established. Training and further training are now managed jointly. The new institution is located in Selm and Neuss. The first head of the IAF is Senior Police Director Dieter Schmidt.
January 823. The last director of the riot police, Günter Möllers, head of the NRW Police Training Directorate since 1998, is retired by Interior Minister Dr. Behrens.
824 Comedian Kaya Yanar shoots a sketch for his TV series "Was guckst du?" at Leverkusen police headquarters with his cow "Benita" and several Leverkusen officers.
825th alerts in the Schengen Information System (SIS): At the beginning of 2003, there were 7.6 million alerts in the SIS, including 1.1 million motor vehicles, 300,000 firearms, 380,000 banknotes and 7.6 million identity documents. The search for persons contains 1.2 million personal data records, including almost 14,000 arrests and extraditions, 775,000 refusals of entry, 34,000 residence investigations and 10,800 police observations.
March 826. The LUPUS computer software (situation support for the police command staff) is introduced for the management of major operational situations. Situation information no longer has to be processed using paper documents, but can be collected and processed centrally on computers.
827. March 25. Prominent police dog owners. Formula 1 racing driver Michael Schumacher and his wife Corinna arrive at the state police school for service dog handlers in Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock. They had bought a puppy there from the police's own kennel.
828 April 30. Wolfgang Riotte, State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior and permanent deputy to the Minister of the Interior, leaves office after 16 years. His successor is the SPD member of the state parliament and economics graduate Hans Krings. During his career, Krings had been Deputy Chief of Police in Aachen, among other things.
829th end for Schellenberg Castle. The "Schloss Schellenberg" training center in Essen's city forest closes its doors. Since the 1970s, seminars for police officers had been held in the castle rented by the Higher State Police School in an idyllic location in the south of Essen. The police have to move out of the 12th century aristocratic residence because the castle is being sold.
830th increase in personnel due to the global threat situation. In 2003, the new threat situation following the attacks in September 2001 in the USA is also taken into account with a further 190 additional posts. In the previous year, the Ministry of the Interior had already approved over 200 new posts for the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution for this reason.
831. June 5. The Recklinghausen police have to deal with a prominent death. FDP politician Jürgen Möllemann plunges to his death during a parachute jump near Marl
June 832. NRW introduces the "Drugwipe" pre-test procedure, with which a suspected person can be tested for drugs using sweat and saliva. However, the pre-test, which is used to check road users for driving under the influence of drugs, does not replace a blood test, but only precedes it.
833. June 24. The new Police Act comes into force. The changes to this law essentially take into account the events of September 11, 2001 in New York. The police are now authorized to install video surveillance systems in public places. Patrol cars may now also be equipped with video technology to record personal and vehicle checks. The recording of emergency calls on audio carriers and dragnet searches are also permitted.
834th Police Athletes of the Year are Police Officer Yvonne Frank (Cologne Police Department) and Police Officer Gregor Simon (Bonn Police Department). While Yvonne Frank became world champion in indoor field hockey with the women's national team, Gregor Simon succeeded in becoming European champion in the two-man Canadian canoe at the Canadian championships in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. Frank and Simon are honored for this achievement by Interior Minister Behrens in 2004.
835. September 1. A huge detonation is triggered in the Velbert police station when a gas pipe ruptures. Windows shatter, partition walls collapse, the service vehicles in the yard and in the garage are badly damaged and the garage doors of the station fly up to 30 meters through the air. The six officers who were in the station at the time were unharmed as they were all in the guard area, which was protected by bulletproof glass, at the time of the explosion. Guard operations can be provisionally resumed with a mobile Krefeld police station. The material damage to and in the police station exceeds 100,000 euros.
836 The results of the first large-scale employee survey in the North Rhine-Westphalian police force are presented Almost 12,700 employees from 21 police authorities and institutions took part. According to the results, there is a particularly high level of satisfaction with collegiality as well as with the activities and tasks within the police force. On the other hand, there is greater dissatisfaction with the immediate working conditions, the equipment in the workplace, a lack of participation in decisions and information from superiors and the appraisal system. The latter takes first place in the ranking of dissatisfaction.
837 November: A video self-security system is now installed in newly purchased patrol cars. The cameras installed in the windshield area are intended to improve the self-security of the officers deployed and deter potential perpetrators from assaulting the officers.
838. October 7. Triple murder. A homicide squad in Cologne is investigating a case in which 45-year-old neo-Nazi Thomas Adolf shot dead a lawyer, his wife and their 26-year-old daughter in a Cologne law firm.
839 In 2003, the number of road accident deaths and injuries reached its lowest level since the introduction of traffic statistics in 1953. With 942 deaths and just under 88,000 injuries, there were fewer accident victims than ever before. However, the number of road accidents under the influence of drugs has increased.
840. December 11. Fatal use of firearms: In Rheurdt near Krefeld, two police officers shoot and kill a 32-year-old drug addict. He had unexpectedly threatened the officers, who had rung his doorbell, with a knife.

2004

841. January 1. The BARVUS project introduces cashless payment transactions to the police in North Rhine-Westphalia. Using mobile payment terminals, which the patrol car crews now carry with them, citizens can pay their fines and security services by credit card. The police are no longer required to accept cash.  The old warning fine pad is now a thing of the past.
842. January 1. Working hours for police officers are increased to 41 hours per week.
January 843. The Wuppertal police seize 270 kg of raw opium. This is the largest find ever made in Germany.
844. January 31. Interior Minister Behrens bids farewell to the former head of the State Criminal Police Office on his retirement. Wolfgang Gatzke, who had already been deputy director since 1997, becomes the new director of the authority.
845. February 3. A 32-year-old police superintendent is shot dead during an SEK Cologne exercise. Together with two other SEK officers, he had been practicing a raid in a dark building. One of the two other officers fired a shot during the exercise.  The shooter was sentenced to eight months in prison on probation in 2004.  As a result of the incident, the SEK squad concerned is disbanded and seven officers are suspended from duty.
February 846. Fatal use of firearms. Police officers in Düren, who are supposed to pick up a man after he has been admitted to a psychiatric ward, are shot at from his apartment. When the officers return fire, the man is fatally shot.
847 Changeover of police vehicle license plates from city license plates to the license plate "NRW -..."
848. 2004 marks the end of the era of the BO 105 CBS police helicopters, which had been purchased since 1978. The aircraft offered space for 5 people, had two engines with a fuel consumption of 200 l / hour and reached a speed of up to 210 km/h. Their maximum flight time was limited to 3:3 hours. Their maximum flight duration was limited to 3:30 hours.
849 The Bochum CID investigates a series of five contract killings in Herne, Düren and Rotterdam. Five Germans of Kazakh origin and one Turkish citizen are suspects. Five of the six suspects are arrested by special task forces and the murder weapons are recovered.
850 The Lippe police station purchases a "Smart TDI" as an official vehicle. The car is used as a service and advertising vehicle for the authority's recruitment consultants and is printed all over with personnel advertising/recruitment advertising.
851 Linnich is abandoned as a training location. Only special training courses will be held there.
852 New recruitment: The state recruits 480 new police officers. 7,000 people had applied for these positions.
853. the previous telex system X.400, with which formal communication within the police was handled by IT, is replaced by the new E-Post 810 system. The new system not only saves personnel and thus costs in the authorities, but is also particularly user-friendly.
853a.  High level of satisfaction with the police: In a citizen survey in which 225,000 North Rhine-Westphalians were sent questionnaires (response rate 30%), trustworthiness and citizen friendliness were rated on average at just under four points on a scale of 1 - 5. The questionnaires were developed under the scientific supervision of police practitioners.
854. March 31. The last trainees for the intermediate service complete their training at the Institute for Initial and Further Training in Selm-Bork.  87 police masters are appointed and leave Selm after 30 months of training. From now on, only officers for the higher service will be trained.
April 855. The NRW riot police take part in protecting the World Jewish Congress in Berlin with ten hundred officers from Wuppertal, Duisburg, Essen, Bochum and Cologne. The support for the Berlin police lasts almost a week.
856 The proportion of women among police officers is 15%, in the higher ranks 7%.
857. June 9. Attack: A nail bomb explodes in a predominantly Turkish neighborhood in Cologne, injuring 22 people, some of them seriously. Years later, the attack turns out to be part of a series of attacks by a right-wing extremist group known as the "National Socialist Underground" (NSU).
858. July 8. The Conference of Interior Ministers in Kiel rejects the involvement of the police in media productions in the context of reality formats.
859. July 9. Swearing-in ceremony: In the Emscher-Lippe-Halle in Gelsenkirchen, 1055 young police officers from the 2003 intake are sworn in in the presence of Interior Minister Behrens and Minister President Peer Steinbrück.
860. August 3. Dieter Schmidt becomes the new director of the Institute for Police Education and Training (IAF).
861. September 20. During a protest by 15,000 demonstrators in Cologne against an anti-Islamization conference, almost 900 demonstrators are surrounded and detained for several hours.
862 Contact officers for Muslim institutions are appointed in all police authorities. This measure is based on the state's action plan for the early detection of Islamist terrorism. The officers are to establish close and trusting contacts with the Muslim communities in their cities.
863. September 23. Hostage-taker shot dead by SEK. Outside a women's refuge in Neuss, a 21-year-old holds a knife to his ex-girlfriend's neck and threatens to kill her. An officer from the SEK called in shoots the man, who dies a few minutes later. The perpetrator had previously injured the woman with a knife cut.
864. November 25. After a bank robbery in Ratingen, the two robbers dressed as Santas run into two plainclothes police officers. During an exchange of fire between the police officers and the perpetrators, one perpetrator is shot dead. The second and a police officer are seriously injured.
865. In 2004, law enforcement officers work 2.5 million hours overtime. Just under 2 million, i.e. around 80%, can be compensated for by time off. This means that the proportion of hours that can be compensated by time off has reached its highest level since the beginning of the 1990s.

2005

866 Rolf Behrendt is appointed State Director of Criminal Investigation, the highest-ranking criminal investigator in the state. Behrendt, who joined the police force in 1967, was most recently responsible for state-wide criminal affairs at the Ministry of the Interior. He succeeds Enno Brillo, who is retiring.
June 867, 24. The term of office of Interior Minister Fritz Behrens (SPD) ends.  He is succeeded on the same day by Dr. Ingo Wolf (FDP). Born on 26.3.55 in Braunschweig, the lawyer starts work as a judge at Aachen Regional Court in 1983. From 1984 to 1989, he worked at the Institute for Energy Law at the University of Cologne. Wolf received his doctorate in Cologne in 1989 and now works as a lawyer. After six years as Chief District Director and head of the police authority in Euskirchen from 1993 to 1999, he was elected to the FDP state parliament in 2000, and in 2002 the father of three became a member of the Bundestag. After his time as NRW Minister of the Interior, he was re-elected to the state parliament twice and has headed the state parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs since 2015.
868th survey "Satisfaction and need for change": The Ministry of the Interior publishes a survey of 21,000 North Rhine-Westphalian police officers from the previous year. According to the survey, NRW police officers are highly satisfied with their work and their colleagues (4.6 out of 6 possible points). The greatest need for change, however, is seen in the appraisal guidelines and retirement provision (52%), followed by social security (27.5%) and the lack of consequences for poor managers (27.4%). More than a quarter of all respondents would like to see greater recognition for the work of security guards.
869. August 2. During a meeting between two detectives and a Moroccan undercover agent in a pub in Bielefeld, the latter suddenly attacks the officers with a knife. One of the officers then shoots the man.
870. August 16 - 21. Cologne has to deal with one of its biggest police operations: World Youth Day 2005 with the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. Every day, around 4,000 police officers from North Rhine-Westphalia and all parts of Germany take care of security and traffic at this event, which is attended by around one million guests from 160 countries.  In addition to the pilgrims, numerous political and church personalities from all over the world also come to Cologne. Among other things, the police have to close 13 kilometers of the Autobahn 1, which serves as a temporary parking area for 8,000 pilgrim buses between the Erfttal interchange and the Frechen junction.
871. September 30: The state interior ministers declare an attempt to involve citizens willing to help in manhunts by text message in order to tighten the manhunt network a failure. In two years of testing, there had only been one reference to text message searches nationwide.
872. October 6: In Unna, a doctor refuses to treat a police officer. Reason: He was so annoyed with the police that he could not rule out the possibility of committing medical errors with police officers.
November 873: The public prosecutor's office in Bonn brings charges against three police officers and a police doctor. The four men are accused of restraining an Italian citizen in a custody cell in such a way that he suffered a cardiac arrest, fell into a permanent coma and suffered irreparable damage.
874. November 24: Emergency landing on the highway: A special kind of operation awaits the highway police on the A52 near Essen-Kettwig. A single-engine plane with three occupants has to land on the highway due to a lack of fuel. After landing, two cars and a truck collide with the plane, which is badly damaged. The pilot and one of the car drivers are slightly injured and two passengers are seriously injured.
875 Digital fingerprinting is tested in a pilot project at Cologne and Gelsenkirchen police stations using the Livescan system. Up to now, fingerprints have been taken nationwide using the conventional method, in which the fingers and palms of those being processed for identification are blackened with black paste and the prints are "stamped" onto the corresponding forms. The forms are then scanned and sent to the Federal Criminal Police Office. With Livescan, this more cumbersome procedure will no longer be necessary in future.
876 The state is urgently looking for four new police pilots for the police aviation squadron. Applicants must belong to the II or III pillar and have sufficient police service experience. In addition, they must not be older than 32 years of age or taller than 185 cm.
877. November 7. The "Euregional Police Information Cooperation Center" (EPICC) is opened in Heerlen in the Netherlands. In future, police officers from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands who belong to the so-called Euregio region will work in this center. On the German side, these are the district police authorities of Aachen, Heinsberg, Düren and Euskirchen. The establishment of this center is intended to combat the increasing cross-border crime in this area. The officers of the center are responsible for the supranational exchange of information such as mediation between police stations, queries in national data systems (EMA, vehicle owners, etc.) and the creation of cross-border crime reports. They are not responsible for requests for mutual legal assistance.
December 878. Interior Minister Wolf hands over 1,000 new VW Passat 6B Variant patrol cars. The vehicles, which are equipped with a 140 hp diesel engine, are to be delivered to the police authorities by March 2006. The vehicles feature a number of technical innovations such as ignition locks that no longer use keys with a bit, an electronic parking brake or an automatic hazard warning light function that is activated in the event of emergency braking, as well as acoustic parking pilots at the front and rear. The new Passat models were only launched on the market by VW in September.
879th annual report on "Domestic violence": With over 8,000 expulsions and bans on returning home, the number of people expelled has continued to rise. The police in NRW were called out 18,000 times to cases of domestic violence.
880 police vehicles in NRW are now required to drive with their dipped headlights on during the day.

2006

881 North Rhine-Westphalia, which was already one of the federal states with the lowest police density, now has the worst ratio of police officers to inhabitants in Germany. In NRW, there are now 456 inhabitants for every police officer. In comparison: in Berlin, one police officer has to look after 162 inhabitants, in Saxony-Anhalt 313 and in Hesse 410. The average nationwide is 1:372.
January 882. Delivery of the new Walther P 99 police pistols begins. A new equipment belt and a new safety holster are introduced together with the weapon. The delivery had been considerably delayed because a competitor of the contracted gun manufacturer had filed a lawsuit against its non-consideration in the awarding of the contract. The new holster has a mechanical safety device that protects officers from losing the weapon while walking or having it pulled out of the holster by a third party. Before the weapon is distributed throughout the state, a one-week trial run will be carried out by the police in the Rhein-Erft district. The new weapon replaces the old Sig Sauer P 6 police pistol, which had been in use by the North Rhine-Westphalian police for around 25 years.
883. March 29. The former Police Command and Staff College (PFA) in Münster becomes the Police University (DHPol) by law. As previously at the PFA, the DHPol trains the next generation of senior officers for all federal states.
884. April 4. Right-wing extremist murder of Turkish merchant. The Turkish owner of a kiosk in Dortmund, Mehmet Kubasik, is found by a customer in a pool of blood on the floor of the store. Resuscitation attempts on the man are unsuccessful. As it turns out, Kubasik was killed by two shots to the head. The Dortmund homicide squad is unable to identify the perpetrator. It is not until many years later that it emerges that the crime can obviously be attributed to the right-wing extremist terrorist group "National Socialist Underground" (NSU).
885. April 14. After a robbery at a kiosk, a police officer shoots a Congolese man in Dortmund. He had previously attacked the officer with a knife.
886. 6 May. In Lage, a 41-year-old man is shot dead by a police officer during a disturbance operation. The man had previously threatened the officer with a gas pistol.
887. July 2. A police officer shoots a burglar in Bonn who is approaching his colleague with a striking tool.
888. July 31. Explosive devices are found in two regional trains in Dortmund and Koblenz, but do not detonate due to technical faults. Video recordings allow two suspects to be identified, who are arrested in Kiel, Tripoli (Lebanon) and Constance in August.
889 In a much-noticed ruling, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) prohibits the police practice of administering emetics (excorporation) to drug dealers and drug smugglers in order to expel swallowed drug packages through vomiting. The practice of using emetics is classified by the ECtHR as an "inhuman and degrading practice". It is subsequently discontinued.  
890. September 1. Cross-border cooperation: The German-Dutch Police and Justice Treaty enters into force. The police forces of both countries are now permitted to pursue persons on the territory of the other country in the context of prosecutions, to carry out surveillance or undercover investigations without spatial or temporal restrictions. Another new feature is that police forces from the other country can also be requested for mutual assistance.  
891 In 2006, the FisPol IT application is introduced as a management and information system in which data from the areas of traffic, crime and cost and performance accounting are recorded and with which managers can make quick and reliable decisions on the basis of current data and facts.
October 892. For the first time, so-called "introductory training courses for criminal investigation officers" are held at the Institute for Basic and Further Training (IAF). All officers transferring from the police to the criminal investigation department must now undergo this six-month course. The prospective criminal investigators receive both theoretical training and practical experience through internships lasting several weeks in the police authorities.
893. November 20. In Emsdetten, a former pupil of the Geschwister-Scholl-Realschule storms the school building and goes on a shooting rampage, killing five other people and then himself.  37 people are injured in the attack, some of them seriously.
894 The number of cannabis plantations discovered by the police in North Rhine-Westphalia increases rapidly. While only three plantations were discovered in 2000, this figure had risen to 32 in 2004 and 57 in 2006, with only those plantations comprising at least 100 plants being statistically recorded.
895 Police officers' Christmas bonuses are drastically reduced from 2005 to 2006. For police masters and senior masters (A7/A8), the rate is reduced from 70 % to 45 % of a monthly salary, and from grade A9 (chief master/commissioner) even from 50 % to only 30 %.

2007

896. January 1. Due to a law passed in 2003, the working life for police officers is increased from 60 to 62 years. With a few exceptions, the age limit for other civil servants is 67.
897. the number of new recruits for junior officers is increased from 500 per year to 1,100. The reason for this is the foreseeable ageing of the NRW police force in a few years' time.
898 Major operation in Essen: The Love Parade attracts 1.2 million visitors to the city center.
899. April 1. Stalking, which has been difficult for police investigations to grasp up to now, and which in some cases involves a wide variety of individual offenses, but in some cases also unpunishable acts, is now given its own criminal offense in the Criminal Code (stalking, § 238 StGB). In order to give police officers in NRW the confidence to act, 130 multipliers are being trained on the subject of "stalking". In addition, a "stalking decree" specifies police action in cases of stalking.
900 Six Italians are shot dead outside a pizzeria in Duisburg. The men, aged between 16 and 38, die in a hail of 70 bullets. In December, two suspected members of the mafia organization 'Ndrangheta are arrested in Oberhausen and Frechen. Further arrests are made in San Luca, Italy.
901 A new decree on juvenile delinquency provides for closer cooperation between schools and the police. School principals are now obliged to report a large number of criminal offenses to the police. Previously, there was no such obligation for school principals. In addition, the police are to inform schools about crimes committed by pupils outside of school hours.  
902. 6 - 8 June. Among the 18,000 German police officers providing security for the G8 summit in Heiligendamm are 2,200 police officers from North Rhine-Westphalia. NRW is providing 13 riot police squads, three technical deployment units, officers from the aviation squadrons, the special units and the equestrian and service dog squads. Staff from various North Rhine-Westphalian district police authorities had also been deployed since April in preparation for the operation.  One detention center in Rostock alone, which has to process over 1,100 detentions during the days of the operation, is staffed by 113 NRW police officers.  The Dortmund and Düsseldorf flying squadrons provide eight pilots and two operators with a Eurocopter EC 155 transport helicopter and the squadrons' two Cessna 182 aircraft.
903. reorganization of the police. The number of district police authorities in NRW is reduced. Three previously independent KPBs are merged with neighboring ones. The Mülheim Police Headquarters is incorporated into the Essen Police Headquarters, the Leverkusen Police Headquarters is merged into the Cologne Police Headquarters and the Water Police Headquarters becomes part of the Duisburg Police Headquarters.
June 904, 20. The previous head of the Central Police Services (ZPD NRW), Senior Police Director Burkhard Gies, retires. He is succeeded by Senior Police Director Jürgen Mathies. Mathies previously held positions of responsibility in the Siegburg and Cologne district police authorities, the Cologne district government and the Ministry of the Interior.
905. July 1. Fatal use of firearms. During an attempt to arrest two burglars in Bonn, one of the suspects is shot dead by an officer. The suspect had previously attacked the officer's colleague with a knife.
906. July 1. The higher state authorities are reorganized. The Central Police Technical Services (ZPD) are dissolved. They are replaced by the State Office for Central Police Services (LZPD) with headquarters in Duisburg. The Institute for Basic and Advanced Police Training NRW (IAF NRW) is also dissolved. It will be replaced by the State Office for Police Training, Further Training and Personnel Affairs (LAFP NRW) in Selm. In addition, the district governments lose their status as police authorities. This removes an intermediate authority between the Ministry of the Interior and the district police authorities.
907. July 1. The state control center at the State Office for Central Police Services in Neuss begins operations. In an area of 800 square meters, the control centre, which is unique in Germany, coordinates emergency services, technical support, searches and communication between police authorities. The state control center performs its tasks with six senior civil servants and a further 21 civil servants who have a wide range of previous experience from control centers of larger authorities. Radio circuits can be interconnected via the control center so that, for example, a patrol car crew from Aachen can communicate directly with a vehicle crew from Bielefeld via radio.
908. September 4. In Medebach-Oberschledorn in the Sauerland region, police under the leadership of the Federal Criminal Police Office arrest three men suspected of planning attacks on US facilities in Germany. The three men, who can be attributed to Islamist circles, are later sentenced to many years in prison together with a fourth, who together become known as the so-called "Sauerland Group".
909. October 2. In Löhne, East Westphalia, a man is shot dead by an SEK commando who was to be arrested and injured one of the officers with a knife.
October 910. Dr. Ludger Schrapper is appointed the new President of the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration NRW. He replaces Dr. Dieprand von Richthofen in office.
911 Modernization of IT. 10,000 old computers are replaced by new, more powerful devices in 2007. In addition, the police now also receive 1,000 notebooks. The measure costs 11.4 million euros for the whole of NRW.
November 912. A decree issued by the Ministry of the Interior stipulates that, with immediate effect, all police officers must undergo a regular sports test every two years. They are to acquire both the German Sports Badge and the Lifeguard Badge. Officers who are not fit enough for the tests and therefore fail are to take part in support programs to regain their fitness. According to the decree, overweight police officers should have themselves examined for fitness for sport.

2008

February 913, 14. The public prosecutor's office in Bochum and the police search the home of Klaus Zumwinkel, the head of the German postal service, in Cologne and arrest the manager on suspicion of tax evasion. A further 25 properties are subsequently searched. The background to this is information secretly acquired by the Federal Intelligence Service about account holders in Liechtenstein. A total of 150 people are suspected of tax evasion.
914 The Love Parade takes place in Dortmund with 1.6 million party guests.
915. September 1. The university of applied sciences changes. The Diplomverwaltungswirt degree is replaced by a Bachelor's degree. For the last time, young police officers who complete their training are appointed Diplom-Verwaltungswirte in 2010.  In 2008, 49 young officers drop out of training. 34 due to failing exams, 15 for personal reasons.
916 The state of NRW now recruits 1,100 police trainees instead of 500.
September 917. Three Islamist perpetrators lure Cologne police officers into an ambush and attempt to disarm them. The attack fails. The Islamists wanted to use the officers' weapons for attacks on US facilities.
918 A "Central Internet Research" (ZIR) office is set up at the State Office of Criminal Investigation. While the district police authorities can only respond to criminal complaints following crimes committed on the Internet or with the help of the Internet, the employees of the ZIR actively "go on patrol" on the Internet and search for crimes and clues about the perpetrators. In 2010, for example, this unit succeeded in uncovering almost 70 cases of child abuse, 277 cases of politically motivated crimes and 717 cases of child pornography.
919 A representative social science survey (ALLBUS survey) on the public's trust in the police yields the following key results: Of all public institutions, the police achieve the second-highest level of trust among the population after universities. The public's trust in the police is medium to high on average. In a comparison of all federal states, the trust of North Rhine-Westphalians in their police is the highest in Germany. The lowest levels of trust in the police are among 18- to 29-year-olds, the highest among 79- to 89-year-olds. Foreigners living in Germany show a slightly higher level of trust in the police than people with German citizenship.  
November 920. During a speed check, police officers in Olpe in the Sauerland region of Germany catch a driver doing 109 km/h instead of the permitted 50 km/h. The speeding driver is none other than the famous German speedster, who was driving at the speed limit. The speeding driver is none other than NRW Transport Minister Oliver Wittke.  Wittke, who had already been banned from driving as mayor of Gelsenkirchen for a significant speeding offense, eventually resigned from his ministerial post because of the incident.
921st fatal shot. In Ratingen, a police officer shoots and kills a 43-year-old man who had allegedly threatened and detained two acquaintances in their apartment. The fatal
The fatal shot is fired as the obviously mentally disturbed man flees from the apartment and attacks the alarmed officers with a large kitchen knife.

2009

922. changeover of patrol vehicles from "green-silver" to "blue-silver"
923. March 3. Police and fire department in Cologne have to respond to a disaster. The Cologne City Archive has collapsed, the rubble has slipped into a subway construction site underneath the building. By the evening of the day of the collapse, three people were missing under the rubble. Two people eventually died in the accident, and most of the irretrievable archives disappeared with the rubble.
924 May 1. A rally of the German Trade Union Confederation in Dortmund is attacked by around 300 neo-Nazis and assaulted with clubs and stones. Five officers are injured in the ensuing police operation and 280 rioters are arrested.
925 The Bochum police are spared a large-scale operation. After consultation with the police and fire department, the Bochum city council decides that the Love Parade planned for Bochum should not take place for security reasons. Bochum's mayor and police chief are met with a storm of public indignation over this decision.
June 926, 7. The Düsseldorf police have to record an accident on the A59 with three fatalities. In the collision between two vehicles, a 22-year-old wrong-way driver crashed into the car of a family (1-year-old children, mother and grandmother), who were killed in the collision.
927. August 18. In a shooting rampage in Schwalmtal during a divorce dispute, a 71-year-old kills two lawyers and a property valuer with gunshots. After a subsequent hostage-taking, he surrenders to the police, who have been called in from Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Mülheim and Bochum.
928 The police union demands that in future patrol officers should carry helmets and batons in their patrol cars. The reason for this is the 6,400 assaults on police officers in NRW in one year alone.
929. October 9. Man dies in gun attack in Duisburg. A citizen called the police in the early evening to report that a couple were arguing violently in the street. Officers then went to the specified location, Neckarstraße. They are immediately fired upon by a man with a firearm. A female officer is seriously injured by a shot to the chest, another officer is shot in the hand. The man himself then dies from a gunshot. It is not yet clear whether this was fired from a police weapon or from the man's own weapon.
930th High sickness rate: In 2009, an average of 17% of all police employees in NRW were on sick leave for more than six weeks (continuously or intermittently). The frontrunners among the district police authorities with long-term sick leave are the Rhein-Sieg district and Bonn with 24% each and Aachen with 29%.  In Cologne alone, 900 officers were unfit for work for more than six weeks without interruption. Stress and violence are seen as the causes of this.
931. end of 2009. introduction of the blue uniform. The uniform had previously been tested on around 1,400 police officers.  The country now purchases 1.1 million uniform items.

Figure 8: Officers on horseback and motorcycle patrol in Düsseldorf in 2006 (Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia)

2010s                       

The new decade begins for the police with an inferno that is to occupy not only the police, but also the criminal courts, the media and the public. At a major event in Duisburg, the Love Parade, which is attended by a six-figure number of people, a crush and panic ensues at an entrance to the venue, leaving 21 people dead and several hundred others injured, some of them seriously. Responsibility for this catastrophe is shifted back and forth between the Duisburg city administration, the police and the organizer of the Love Parade. The only thing that seems certain is that serious planning deficiencies contributed to this accident. Interior Minister Ralf Jäger had taken office just over a week earlier. The event is a great burden for the politician, who is just getting to grips with the basics of his official duties. Police work will be dominated by further challenges until the middle of this decade: Violence surrounding sporting events, violent Islamists and the associated risk of terrorist attacks, but also the newly blossoming rocker scene and the criminal activities of hate-filled right-wing extremists now make up a large part of the work that has to be done alongside everyday tasks. From 2014 onwards, the never-ending influx of refugees from Syria, Iraq and other civil war countries in Asia and Africa also determined police work. The sharp rise in the number of domestic burglaries since 2007 has also become a problem. This package of major tasks is leading to a gradual increase in police personnel. Following Islamist-motivated attacks in several major European cities from the beginning of 2015, including Paris, London, Brussels, Berlin, St. Petersburg and Stockholm, which resulted in numerous deaths and injuries, there are signs of a shift away from a previously rather liberal security policy. In addition to increasing staffing levels, the level of armament of NRW police officers must be increased and video surveillance of public spaces, long regarded in the public debate as a restriction of individual freedom, is also on the rise. On New Year's Eve from 2015 to 2016, mass sexual assaults and robberies committed by North African migrants, mainly against young women, shook the country on Cologne's Domplatte. The insufficient number of police officers is sometimes too late to notice the incidents, and in some cases the officers are not able to offer the women affected sufficient protection. Other dominant issues in the police force this decade are reckless speeding cars with their life-threatening high-speed races on city streets, increasing violence against police officers and emergency services, the new accident gaffer phenomenon, where police at accident scenes are hindered in their work by sensationalist smartphone filmers, but also the fight against crime by Arab family clans and the growing threat to society from fanatical Islamists and neo-Nazis. The threat to local, state and federal politicians from political extremists and the never-ending series of ATM blasts are also becoming new areas of work for the police.

2010

932. June 2. Gelsenkirchen police officer Annette L. disappears without a trace. The mother of four children is never found again. Her husband, himself a police officer, is temporarily arrested. A number of serious clues and contradictions involving him lead the Essen homicide squad investigating the case to the conclusion that her husband may have killed her and disposed of her body. However, the officer is ultimately not proven guilty of the crime. However, he is sentenced to two and a half years in prison for aggravated arson and child pornography.
933rd Chief Criminal Director Dieter Schürmann becomes the new State Criminal Director and thus the highest-ranking criminal investigator in the state. He replaces Rolf Behrendt, who retires. Schürmann has been in the criminal service since 1976 and has worked as a homicide investigator and in the fight against organized crime. In the senior civil service, he was head of the department for crime analysis and crime prevention at the State Office of Criminal Investigation and a consultant for criminal affairs at the Ministry of the Interior.
934th New Minister of the Interior. The term of office of Interior Minister Ingo Wolf (FDP) ends on 15.7.10. He is replaced on the same day by Ralf Jäger (SPD).  Jäger was born on 25.3.61 in Duisburg. After training as a wholesale and retail salesman, he was elected to Duisburg City Council in 1989. In 2000, he was elected to the NRW state parliament for the SPD for the first time and became deputy leader of the parliamentary group in 2004. In 2010, he was appointed Minister of the Interior and Local Government.
935. July 24. Love Parade in Duisburg with 21 deaths and 541 injuries. During the Love Parade, there is a mass panic in the course of which people fall to the ground in front of the apparently too narrow entrance to the festival grounds and are trampled to death by the following crowds. During the main phase of the event, rescue workers are barely able to reach the victims and help them. The Love Parade, which had taken place in numerous other cities in previous years and had been very popular, apparently had no suitable security concept in Duisburg, so that warnings had been issued by the police before the event. 4,100 police officers from all over NRW were deployed at the event.  After the accident, a BAO (Special Organizational Structure) was set up at Duisburg police headquarters, which attempted, among other things, to find out the whereabouts of any injured or dead persons and to provide information and psychological support to the many distraught people who had turned to the police in search of their family members and friends. A large number of police officers and other helpers involved were subsequently traumatized by their experiences on the ground and had to receive psychological care themselves.
936. 15.5% of 7100 applicants for training positions for police officers are accepted. From 2011, the number of training positions is to be increased from 1,100 to 1,400.
937 The new building of the State Office of Criminal Investigation in Düsseldorf is completed. The 195 meter long and 70 meter wide building complex has a gross floor area of 60,000 square meters. 1,100 employees move into the building under the leadership of LKA Director Wolfgang Gatzke.
938. August 30. In Cologne, a 42-year-old pharmacy robber is shot dead by police officers. He had previously threatened the officers with a gas pistol that looked deceptively similar to a real gun. He did not drop his weapon even after being asked to do so several times by the officers.
939 In the fall, the memorial "The Guardian" is unveiled on the grounds of the State Office for Basic and Further Training in Selm in a ceremony attended by Interior Minister Jäger. The larger-than-life metal sculpture was created by the former Düsseldorf police officer and internationally renowned artist Karl-Heinz (Anatol) Herzfeld, a student of Joseph Beuys. It is intended to commemorate the police officers who died in the line of duty.
940 The 18 riot police squads (BPH) in the state comprised a total of 2,415 officers (target posts) in 2010.
941 Of the almost 42,000 police officers in the state, almost exactly 50%, namely 21,300, regularly perform night duty, which is harmful to health.
942 Criminal allegations against police officers. In 2010, 1,434 criminal charges were brought against police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia, both in connection with their work and in a private capacity. The most frequent accusations made by the complainants are assault in office (497 cases), insult (102), obstruction of justice in office (91), coercion (74), fraud (47), deprivation of liberty (33) and theft (22). Only 17 police officers were convicted in court on the basis of these charges: Insult (5 cases), negligent bodily harm (2), endangering road traffic (2), hit-and-run (1), violation of private secrets (1), deprivation of liberty (1), embezzlement (1), assault in office (1), extortion of statements (1), violation of official secrets (1) and driving without a license (1).

2011

943 January 1. Once again, there is a reorganization of the 47 district police authorities in the state. The previous model with two departments (security/law enforcement and administration/logistics) is replaced by a directorate model. Four directorates will now be created in the authorities (security/deployment, crime, traffic and central affairs).
944. January 12. The "Police Intranet", which contains extensive specialist information for all 50,000 employees of the NRW police, is renamed "Intrapol".
945th "Crash Course NRW" traffic education program. The NRW police launch a new road safety program aimed specifically at young drivers who are involved in an above-average number of serious road accidents. In the "Crash Course NRW" program, young people are confronted with drastic images, but also with drastic descriptions by police officers, emergency doctors, firefighters, emergency pastoral workers and relatives of fatal accident victims, who report on their experiences in the most serious traffic accidents. The experts specifically visit the 10th and 11th grades of NRW schools to reach their target groups.
946. 124 of the 1,100 young police officers who are sworn in in Essen already have a migration background. Interior Minister Jäger explained at the swearing-in ceremony: "They have special skills thanks to their language skills and cultural backgrounds. This is becoming increasingly important in day-to-day service."
947 The wave of certification in the private sector also reaches the State Office of Criminal Investigation. The authority receives a seal of approval from the DAKKS accreditation body for outstanding forensic work. 200 forensic employees, 140 of whom are scientists, have processed more than 35,000 investigation requests with around 90,000 evidence carriers in around 100 in-house laboratories in the previous year. In the process, 34,000 expert reports were prepared.
948. severely disabled persons in the police force: Of the 44,000 employees of the NRW police force, 2,900 have a severe disability with a degree of disability of over 50%. 1,300 have a lesser degree of disability. For example, blind employees are employed by the State Office of Criminal Investigation. In the Netherlands and Belgium, the police had previously had good experiences with blind people in the area of telecommunications surveillance, as they had significantly better hearing than sighted people.
949 The Ministry of the Interior launches the "Turn the corner" prevention program. In light of the fact that in 2010 alone, 6% of all suspected juveniles were responsible for a third of all crimes committed by juveniles, a program is launched in which the police take intensive care of particularly vulnerable juveniles and children. Contact is made with the parents and schools of those affected, discussions are held with those at risk and offers of help are made in a network with other authorities and institutions. Among other things, anti-aggression, parenting, sports and language courses are offered. Pilot authorities in which "Kurve kriegen" is being tested are Aachen, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Duisburg, Hagen, Cologne, Rhein-Erft-Kreis and the district of Wesel.
950th Police Inspector Dieter Wehe signs an agreement with the Palestinian police in Jericho, which stipulates that North Rhine-Westphalian police officers are to train their Palestinian colleagues in traffic surveillance recording. The background to this is the large number of fatal accidents involving children on Palestinian roads.
951 The NRW police set up a police app for smartphones. Smartphone owners can now call up information from the police homepage on their devices.
952: 1,700 of the 12,000 federal and state police forces deployed for the so-called Castor transport, the rail transport of radioactive waste to the Gorleben repository in Lower Saxony, are provided by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
953 October: The Ministry of the Interior launches the "Riegel vor!" program. As part of this program, the State Office of Criminal Investigation and the district police authorities are to step up their efforts against burglars. "Riegel vor!" focuses on prevention and aims to encourage citizens to install burglar alarms and to report suspicious observations to the police. The program is subsequently publicized extensively via the mass media. The state's patrol cars are subsequently fitted with eye-catching stickers drawing attention to "Riegel vor!".
954. October 6. Use of firearms. Police officers shoot down a man at a brothel in Oberhausen who had fired several shots at the arriving officers and then injured three officers with a knife, some of them seriously.
955. November 15. In connection with the portrayal of the police in the media and the support of media productions by the police, a circular is issued on "Cooperation between the media and the police in North Rhine-Westphalia". Among other things, the decree takes into account the fact that the police are portrayed in an unrealistic and sensationalist manner in so-called "documentaries". It also stipulates the conditions under which operations may be accompanied or police officers may take part in such documentaries. Productions such as "Toto and Harry" would no longer be compatible with this decree. Renting guards or borrowing service vehicles and other equipment by production companies is generally out of the question.
956 The Water Police (WSP) receives a new flagship. The 1.5 million euro vessel is stationed in Duisburg and equipped with state-of-the-art electronics. Instead of a steering wheel, there is now a joystick with which the "WSP 1" is steered through the Rhine and the adjacent waters. The ship is equipped with two eight-cylinder 750 hp engines and reaches a speed of almost 60 km/h. Using the Automatic Identification System (AIS), WSP officers can now monitor the data of passing ships, such as length, ship name or cargo, and make a selection for possible inspections.
957. suicides among police officers. Across the country, a total of 9 police officers took their own lives in 2011. Within a decade, since 2002, 73 police officers in NRW have died by suicide.

2012

958th NRW police motorcyclists get a new uniform. The upper half of the motorcycle jacket is now a bright yellow, as is the entire helmet. This means that the officers on their motorcycles can now be seen from afar, even in poor visibility conditions.
959 The Dortmund police set up a BAO "Rechts" (special organizational structure).  In recent years, Dortmund has developed into a gathering place for right-wing extremists and has attracted attention due to an accumulation of right-wing extremist crimes.
February 960. Due to a hacker attack, the NRW police homepage has to be shut down for a week.
961. February 10. To combat the main cause of accidents, "excessive speed", the NRW police carry out a so-called "speed marathon" for a whole day for the first time. Together with the speed monitoring forces of the local authorities, checks will be carried out at numerous measuring points throughout NRW in order to sensitize drivers to the danger of speeding. Interior Minister Jäger points out that speeding is the "No. 1 killer". During the large-scale campaign, the officers involved catch numerous speeders. The campaign is continued in subsequent years, sometimes extending to the whole of Germany and neighboring countries. Scientists attest to the great success of the campaign in terms of road safety.
962 June: The law on the establishment of a National Weapons Register creates the conditions for a nationwide central register of firearms and their owners.  Up to now, information on gun ownership has been spread across 500 authorities nationwide.
July 963, 2012: NRW procures 2000 new VW Passat B7 patrol cars
December 964. Members of the radical Islamic scene deposit a travel bag with an explosive device at Bonn Central Station. However, it does not explode.
965 Trial operation of digital radio begins in Düsseldorf, Mönchengladbach and the districts of Mettmann, Viersen and Rhein-Neuss-Kreis. Cologne follows as a further test authority in 2012.
966 The state government adopts an 8-point program for the fight against right-wing extremist criminals in NRW. Following a significant increase in crimes committed by the scene in recent years, it is decided, among other things, that the crimes committed by right-wing extremists should be specifically recorded statistically, personnel resources for combating such crimes should be increased, the pressure to monitor and investigate should be increased and prevention in this area should also be stepped up.
967 Christoph Fildebrandt from the Cologne Police Department achieves 6th place in the 4 x 100 m freestyle relay at the Olympic Games in London.
968 An online advice center ZARF (Central Information Center for Legal Issues in the Further Training of the NRW Police) is set up in the Intrapol of the police. Not only current legal problems relating to the police are presented there. Rather, police officers from all over NRW can also use the online form to have unresolved legal issues clarified by a team of legally experienced police officers.
969 The proportion of young people with a migration background among police students at the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration is 11.5%.
970 Both the police sportswoman and the police sportsman of the year in 2012 come from Cologne. For example, police officer candidate Daniela Manz came 2nd in the hammer throw at the German Athletics Championships. Commissioner candidate Christoph Fildebrandt achieved a 6th place in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay at the Olympic Games in London. Among the successful sportswomen in the North Rhine-Westphalian police force are three female officers who are members of the national women's police football team and who became European champions with their team in Denmark. They are police commissioners Sandra Albertz from the Krefeld PP, Vanessa Baudzus from the Cologne PP and Nathalie Bock from the Wuppertal PP.  
971. December 18. The new building of the State Office for Central Police Services (LZPD) in Duisburg's inner harbor is completed. In future, 470 police employees will work here on 12,000 square meters. The building houses, among other things, the state control center, the independent police welfare service, the central clothing office and the central information office for police sports operations.

2013

972 The results of a North Rhine-Westphalia-wide study "Violence against police officers" are published. According to the study, almost every second police officer in contact with citizens was subjected to a more or less serious physical attack in 2011. Almost half of all police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia took part in the 2012 survey.
973. April 18. Chief Police Director Stefan Feller is appointed Senior Police Advisor for UN peacekeeping missions at the United Nations by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. The officer from North Rhine-Westphalia, who is now working at the UN headquarters in New York, had previously been head of police for the UN missions in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina and had worked for the police in Dortmund, Castrop-Rauxel, Soest and Arnsberg before his promotion to the higher ranks.
974 Robin Schembera from the Cologne police department becomes German champion in the 800m race.
975 The President of the German Police University, Klaus Neidhardt, retires. He had headed the institution in Münster, where the higher police service for the whole of Germany is trained, since it was founded in 2006.
976. in 2013, the water police had 25 boats and 265 officers on the country's rivers and canals. The average age of the officers is above average at 49 years.
977th Sports Decree: With immediate effect, all police officers must provide evidence of their sporting ability on an annual basis. Either the German Sports Badge, the European Sports Performance Badge or the passing of a special police performance test, in which minimum requirements for running and swimming must be met, must be proven. The officers concerned are credited eight hours for successfully completing the test.  Officers who do not achieve the performance certificate must be retrained.
October 978. The first five of ten NRW police officers are deployed to the African state of Mali as part of the UN mission "MINUSMA". Together with other UN deployees, the officers are to help stabilize the state in the crisis-ridden country. The police officers have been prepared for their work by the State Office for Police Training, Further Training and Personnel. In addition to English, they must be proficient in French for their work, as this language is spoken in Mali, a former French colony.
979 Free rail transportation for police officers: A complaint from a rail customer has prompted the Ministry of the Interior to once again expressly point out in a decree the conditions under which police officers are transported free of charge on Deutsche Bahn AG trains. According to the decree, officers must be in uniform and may not use 1st class. They must vacate their seat for paying customers. In the complaint case, a rail customer stated that she had repeatedly experienced that plainclothes police officers had used 1st class and had not considered it necessary to vacate their seats for paying customers.
980. November 30. The Director of the State Office of Criminal Investigation, Wolfgang Gatzke, retires. He had taken over as head of the authority in 2004. He is succeeded as director by Uwe Jacob. Jacob joined the police force in 1974. In the higher service, he was, among other things, head of the criminal investigation department in Wesel and between 2007 and 2009 also head of the "Criminal Affairs" department at the LKA.
981. In 2013, there were 2,809 traffic accidents involving police vehicles across the country.

2014

982. January 22. As part of its "Mobile Offenders in Focus (MOTIV)" program, the Ministry of the Interior initiates a focus control day against domestic burglars. Traffic checks are carried out on the streets in several district police authorities with a high level of staffing.  According to the Ministry of the Interior, a whole series of burglars are arrested during the campaigns. The police unions subsequently accuse the Minister of the Interior of misleading the public with this success story. In fact, it was not burglars who were arrested, but arrest warrants that had been deliberately withheld for this day of action that were executed. The majority of the warrants were not for burglars, but for fare dodgers and other petty criminals.
983 By the end of the year, 18 district police authorities already have a page on Facebook. This social network is used to make searches accessible to a large public, as well as current information on traffic events and police successes.
984 The personnel situation for the specialized organizational units of the police in NRW in 2014 is as follows: Special units 786 officers, personal protection squads 104, advisory groups 10, technical task forces 159, riot squads 2,214 as well as command groups riot police with 36 officers, state rider squadron 50, police aviation squadron 66 and water police 275 officers.
985. July 1. University professor Hans-Jürgen Lange becomes the new president of the German Police University in Münster. Born in Bochum in 1961, Lange studied social sciences and most recently worked as a professor at the University of Witten/Herdecke, where he was Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Reflection.
986 At the German Police Judo Championships in Meiningen, Thuringia, Duisburg police officer Sander Dijkstra wins the gold medal in the weight category up to 66 kg.
987 At the 33rd German Police Swimming and Rescue Championships in Fürstenwalde in September 2014, the North Rhine-Westphalian athletes won a gold medal (Mandy Blum, Dortmund Police Department, 50 m freestyle) as well as numerous silver medals.
988th European Police Champion in the women's marathon is Cologne police officer Rike Westermann with a time of 2:56 hours. The competition was held from 10 - 13.10.14 in Graz, Austria.
989. the police density in NRW is 1:438 (one police officer has to look after 438 citizens on average). This puts North Rhine-Westphalia in third place in the ranking of federal states. In Berlin, there are 208 citizens for every police officer, while in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the state with the most favorable ratio, one police officer has to look after 312 citizens. Only in Hesse (1:440) and Baden-Württemberg (1:443) is the police density even slightly less favorable.
August 990: In addition to their blue and silver paintwork, the highway police patrol cars now also have neon yellow stickers to make them stand out from afar.
991st operational workload for riot police: The riot police units worked almost 3.9 million hours in 2014. 1.8 million of these were spent on operations for special reasons, 760,000 on operational support for the district police authorities, 950,000 on training and 390,000 on other personnel hours. Deployments for special reasons were distributed as follows: "Right/left" demonstration 8.5%, other demonstration 9.2%, soccer deployments 30.9%, support for other federal states 8.6%, deployment preparation and follow-up 16.4% and other deployments 26.8%.
992. September 27. Fatal police shooting. A man dies in Goch after being shot by police officers in self-defense. After an officer had been threatened by the 37-year-old mentally disturbed man with a pocket knife and the words "I'll stab you", he had fired three shots at the man.
993: NRW defends its title against Baden-Württemberg at the 22nd German Police Football Championships.
November 994: At Essen Central Station, a 22-year-old chokes a federal police officer to unconsciousness during a riot by 80 Düsseldorf soccer supporters. The officer is seriously injured and admitted to hospital with laryngeal contusions.
995. the response times for external operations - i.e. the time from the police being alerted by a citizen to the arrival of the first police vehicle at the scene - averaged 15 minutes 32 seconds across the country in 2014. This is the average for all types of operations. The average response time for alerts with the words "offender at the scene" was 5 minutes 33 seconds and for traffic accidents with injured persons 9 minutes 33 seconds.

2015

996. 1 January: Fatal fist strike. A 44-year-old man dies in Gelsenkirchen after being hit with a fist by a police officer. The officers had been called after the man had hit his partner and then started a fire in her apartment. While the fire was still being extinguished, the 44-year-old man put up fierce resistance to his arrest, resulting in the punch.
997 The CDU state parliamentary group calls for police officers in NRW to be equipped with shoulder cameras. Trials in some Hessian cities have shown that attacks on police officers there have fallen by 26%. However, opponents argue that shoulder cameras make it almost impossible for police and citizens to work together in a spirit of trust. The FDP and the Greens reject the cameras on data protection grounds.
998 Interior Minister Jäger announces the creation of 385 additional civil servant positions for the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The officers are to counter the threats posed by Islamist violence.
999. February 24. Against the backdrop of the sharp rise in rocker crime in recent years, Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière issues a ban on the rocker club "Satudarah Maluku MC", founded in Duisburg in 2012. State Interior Minister Jäger announces that the associated "frock ban" will be implemented consistently. Immediately after the ban order, 540 officers search several club premises and homes of Satudarah members throughout NRW and seize club emblems, among other things.
1000 suicides among police officers. In response to a minor question from the state parliament, the Ministry of the Interior publishes an overview of suicides by police officers between 2010 and 2014. 41 police officers took their own lives during this period. In 27 cases, the service weapon was used, while the other cases involved strangulation or rail suicides in particular. Eight of the suicides took place on duty premises. Only in one case could an official motive for the act be identified with certainty. In 24 cases, there was a private cause; in the other cases, the motive for the suicide could not be identified. With around 20 % of all cases, the KPB Cologne was affected more often than average in relation to its number of employees.
1001 A joint investigation group "Organized Crime and Tax Evasion" consisting of tax investigators and police officers is set up in the State Office of Criminal Investigation to combat white-collar crime and tax evasion.
1002 The "Violent Offenders and Sport" program is intended to take targeted action against individuals who are known to be violent offenders at sporting events and who are predicted to continue to appear in the future. The criminal investigation departments (KHSt) are to collect information on such persons for their areas and exchange information with the other KHSTs.
1003. April 1. Chief Police Director Michael Frücht becomes the new Director of the State Office for Training, Further Training and Personnel Affairs (LAFP) of the NRW Police. He succeeds Dieter Schmidt, who is retiring. The 56-year-old Frücht joined the police force in 1978 and spent a long time with the Neuss highway police and the Duisburg police. He then headed up the police state security department at Münster police station and the management staff at Essen police station. Since 1999, he has held several positions of responsibility in the Ministry of the Interior.
1004. April 14. A 19-year-old cyclist dies in an illegal car race in Cologne. A 21-year-old and a 22-year-old car driver had gotten so worked up by speeding and speeding at traffic lights that the 22-year-old finally lost control of his car at high speed and killed the young cyclist. This and similar cases mean that in 2016, federal lawmakers want to classify illegal racing as a criminal offense rather than an administrative offense.
1005. in the first half of 2015, the Ministry of the Interior plans to test analytical software to predict and more effectively combat residential burglaries as part of what is known as "predictive policing". Such programs are already being used in the United States and Switzerland, which use criminal geography and other criminological data to predict in which districts of a city or county burglaries are likely to occur in the following days. In Switzerland and the USA, the "Precobs" software is used for this analysis procedure.
1006 Interior Minister Jäger temporarily provides the immigration authorities with around 100 police officers for the registration of war refugees from Africa and Asia.
1007 The Ministry of the Interior also writes to retired police officers to assist with the registration of asylum seekers. Within a short space of time, 150 senior police officers volunteer to work in the registration centers.
1008 The red-green state government decides to retroactively increase the number of police recruits for 2015 by 250 additional officers. This means that 1,900 young police officers will now begin their training at the locations of the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration this year. The fact that the 250 students will only begin their training after the start of the new academic year poses particular challenges for the University of Applied Sciences. The new hires were considered unavoidable in view of the huge influx of refugees from crisis areas around the world and the country's pressing crime problems (burglary, rockers, Salafists).
1009 In response to a question from the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament, the Ministry of the Interior admits that the police have considerable difficulties in combating the theft of navigation devices from cars. Between 2012 and 2014, 22,000 "sat navs" were stolen in vehicle break-ins in NRW, resulting in a loss of 75 million euros. The detection rate is less than 1%.
1010 The NRW Ministry of the Interior is forging plans to cut police costs. For example, in cases where there are several consecutive disturbances of the peace at night, the perpetrators of the noise are to be charged official fees for the operation. The removal of tasks such as the recording of minor accidents and property protection measures could also save 1,130 officers, who could take on more urgent tasks within the police force.
June 1011. Bernd Heinen becomes the new Inspector of Police. The Chief Police Director, who joined the police in 1976, has already held management positions in Duisburg, at the State Office of Criminal Investigation and in the Ministry of the Interior. He replaces Dieter Wehe as inspector, who is retiring.
1012. July 2. A 46-year-old female police officer and her 51-year-old colleague from the highway police are killed in a serious traffic accident on the A44 in Lichtenau (Paderborn district). A 34-year-old truck driver under the influence of drugs crashed into the vehicle of the two officers, who were waiting for reinforcements for a vehicle check. The officers were unable to free themselves from their burning vehicle.
1013 Aug. 5. Fatal use of firearms: In the entrance lock of an Oberhausen police station, an officer shoots a 39-year-old man who had stabbed another man with a knife.
September 1014. Cologne Police Commissioner Wolfgang Albers decides to disband the Special Operations Command (SEK) Cologne. The SEK officers had been accused of robbing new recruits to the elite unit of their human dignity in bizarre recruitment rituals and of misusing a service helicopter for spectacular private photos in which SEK officers were said to have posed at great heights on the pillars of a bridge over the Rhine.
1015 Residential burglaries have risen dramatically in NRW since 2007. From 2014 to the first half of 2015, there were even increases of up to 50% in some cities. In some cases, the authorities' detection rates are in single figures.
1016 A soccer incident from 2013 is leading to increasing anger between the Ministry of the Interior and the police on the one hand and Schalke 04 on the other. In 2013, the police stormed the Schalke fan block following a provocation. There are increasing disputes between the Ministry of the Interior and the club because a banner with a photo of the then head of operations of the police squad is displayed at all Schalke matches with demands to resign and there are disparaging graffiti against the head of operations in the vicinity of the Gelsenkirchen stadium.
1017 The Blitzmarathon days continue for the fourth year. The campaign days, which were launched by the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior in 2012, now involve not only all German states, but also 21 other European countries.  Opinions differ on the purpose of the personnel-intensive selective measures. While Interior Minister Jäger - based on a report by RWTH Aachen University - sees a 15% reduction in accidents with fatalities and injuries in the two weeks following the speed camera marathon, critics, in particular the police union, see the measure as a PR stunt by the Interior Minister. Accidents involving road users killed by speeders have increased significantly over the long term in 2014, despite the high deployment of personnel.
October 1018, 13. The State Office of Criminal Investigation sets up the "Heat" investigation commission. The investigation deals with 32 successful and 12 attempted explosions of ATMs in North Rhine-Westphalian banks since the beginning of the year. The crimes, most of which also caused considerable damage to the buildings and bank premises concerned, resulted in property damage of around 5 million euros alone.
October 1019, 17. The Cologne police are called to the scene after an attack on the Cologne mayoral candidate Henriette Reker. A man known to be a right-wing extremist had stabbed the 58-year-old in the upper body with a knife at an election campaign event on the day before the election, critically injuring her. Ms. Reker, who has no party affiliation, is elected the new mayor of Cologne by the city's citizens while she lies in a coma in hospital.
1020. NRW receives 120 new BMW R 1200 RT service motorcycles. The bikes are now equipped with a signal transmitter on the front of the vehicle, which can be used to signal drivers ahead to stop. This eliminates the previously dangerous overtaking of vehicles.
1021. social change in the police force: In November, a symposium at the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration, organized by members of the police force and police training, will deal with the so-called "Generation Y", those born between 1985 and 2000, who are now entering the police force as new recruits. The defining characteristics of this young generation, which is not only influenced by the police but is also changing the police itself, are identified: Digitalization, globalization, growing up in an affluent society, early maturity in media use and late bloom in professional life and in starting a family, opportunism and pragmatism. In addition, this generation is exposed to a higher degree of academization than previous generations of police officers simply because they started their careers by studying.
1022 October/November. The high number of refugees streaming into NRW from Syria, Iraq and other areas is placing considerable demands on the police. There were around 16,000 deployments at refugee shelters across the state in September and already 21,000 in October. However, the lion's share was made up of property protection and reconnaissance measures. Less than one in ten deployments were externally initiated, for example due to fights, thefts, requests for help, etc. (September 1,447 deployments / October 1,499).
1023. November 1. In NRW, analysis software (IBM SPSS) for predicting burglaries is introduced on a trial basis as part of "predictive policing". The program, which is fed with criminological data on a daily basis, is intended to make it possible to predict in which police districts burglaries are likely to occur in the following days. The aim is to deploy police officers in a targeted manner to combat burglaries. The pilot authorities for the trial are the Cologne and Duisburg police departments.
1024. November 9. Model change for patrol cars. NRW has delivered the first of a total of 1,845 new BMW 318 Touring patrol cars. The first authorities where officers can now drive BMWs are Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Hamm.  The vehicles are optimized in several respects compared to previous patrol cars. For example, in addition to the blue and silver paintwork, the new vehicles are fitted with yellow fluorescent films for better visibility. The vehicles also have more ground clearance and are equipped with navigation devices.  Numerous officers criticized the BMW after a short time. The car was too narrow for patrol duty, the seats too low and the trunk too small.
1025 After several attacks by suspected Islamist perpetrators in Paris, resulting in 132 deaths and numerous serious injuries, North Rhine-Westphalian police officers are instructed to carry submachine guns on their patrols in view of a Europe-wide threat to the security situation
1026. sick leave: NRW police officers spend an average of 8.6% of their working days per year on sick leave. This puts their rate above that of all state civil servants at 7.5%. This is attributed to the above-average workload of police officers.
1027. December 15. Islamist hate preacher arrested. Islam convert Sven Lau, who comes from a Catholic home, is arrested by Mönchengladbach police on a warrant after entering a police station to collect items from a previous search of his home. The former member of the Mönchengladbach fire department is suspected of supporting a terrorist organization. The 35-year-old is alleged to have recruited young people for the terrorist organization IS, which is active in Syria and other countries.
1028. December 31. Flash mob with a hunt for women. The year ends with threats, robberies and sexual assaults, particularly against women, on Cologne's Domplatte and in the area around the main railway station. According to witnesses, around 1000 men of "Arab and North African origin" gathered in front of the cathedral on New Year's Eve and hunted down women. The police, who are on the scene with around 200 officers, do not initially realize the extent of what is happening due to the confusion on the ground. However, by January 5, the Cologne police had received 90 criminal complaints alone, in particular for sexual abuse. Cologne's Mayor Reker, Police President Albers and the Minister of the Interior express their dismay at the incidents.
1029 The highway police are equipped with new vehicles. Starting in the fall, 130 BMW 520d touring patrol cars are delivered.
1030. 120 new BMW motorcycles are added to the police fleet by the end of the year. The motorcycles are now also equipped with a "Stop police" light at the front, so that the motorcycle police no longer have to overtake every vehicle they want to stop. Silver reflective foils on the vehicles and a button for the "Rain" or "Road" riding modes ensure greater safety when riding.
1031 Of the 420,000 dactyloscopic crime scene traces from crime scenes throughout Germany that are stored in the Federal Criminal Police Office's AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) fingerprint database, around 105,000 came from crime scenes in North Rhine-Westphalia as of 2015. Of the three million people whose fingerprints are also stored in the database, around 370,000 come from NRW. Throughout the year, the North Rhine-Westphalian LKA fed 6,700 new crime scene traces into the computer system, and in 1,900 cases it was possible to identify the persons responsible for the traces.
1032. traffic accidents caused by cell phones: In 2015, over 110,000 drivers in NRW were caught using their cell phones while driving. In 280 cases, cell phones are seized after accidents because it is suspected that their use may have caused the accident. In several cases, even in fatal accidents, it can be proven that the drivers involved were busy texting or making phone calls at the time of the accident. The Ministry of the Interior points out that texting while driving is comparable to driving under the influence of alcohol at 1.1 per mille.  
1033. NRW's police worked more than 1.9 million hours of overtime in 2015.

2016

1034 Cologne attacks. The events of New Year's Eve in Cologne continue to dominate the public and events in the North Rhine-Westphalian police force in January. The full extent of the events in the Domplatte area is only gradually revealed. By January 15, around 800 criminal charges had been successively filed with the police, most of them for sexual assaults and the associated thefts of cell phones and cash committed during the sex attacks.  A number of stolen cell phones can be located and recovered in refugee homes, including in Recklinghausen.  Interior Minister Jäger accuses Cologne police chief Albers of serious failings and dismisses him.  During the investigation, it becomes apparent that the perpetrators were mainly young North Africans, some of whom had come to NRW as refugees. The Düsseldorf state parliament sets up a committee of inquiry into the matter.  Interior Minister Ralf Jäger comes under fire from the opposition parties.
1035: Following the Cologne incidents, Wolfgang Albers is succeeded as Cologne Police Commissioner by the previous President of the State Office for Central Police Services, Jürgen Mathies. Mathies began his career in 1980 in the patrol service of the Cologne police and subsequently held police management positions in Siegburg and Cologne and in the Cologne district government.
January 1036: A North African asylum seeker from a refugee home in Recklinghausen forcibly enters a police station in Paris as a suspected assassin, but is shot dead by the officers present. Investigations by the LKA reveal that the man, who is also known as a criminal in Germany, was an IS supporter and probably committed his attack in this context.
1037 In Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Witten and Recklinghausen, self-proclaimed vigilante groups are formed which - as can be seen from their websites - want to patrol their cities and keep order. The Düsseldorf group disbanded after a short time, stating that they had "recognized the concerns of citizens and the police" about such groups.
1038 By the end of March, more than 20 ATMs had already been blown up across the country. In the previous year, 67 such machines had been blown up in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the Ministry of the Interior, around 40% of these cases were solved in 2015. The "Heat" investigation commission set up for such cases works closely with the Dutch authorities, as the perpetrators often come from the Netherlands.
1039 Holocaust remembrance. A group of police students from NRW and two lecturers travel to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The trip is based on a cooperation between the NRW police and the Israeli institution. The cooperation is to become an integral part of the young police officers' training. The trips, which serve to train professional ethics, are to take place every year in future.
1040. April 16. Islamist attack on Sikh temple. In mid-April, there is an explosive attack on a Sikh temple in Essen during a wedding celebration. Three people are injured in the attack, one of them, the priest of the temple, is seriously injured. The police are able to identify the perpetrators as three young people who had become radicalized Islamists.
1041: Interior Minister Ralf Jäger orders all district police authorities to publish maps of current burglary locations on the internet from March 2016 ("burglary radar"). The aim is to achieve greater transparency for the public with regard to domestic burglaries. In 2015, NRW recorded an 18% increase in these crimes to over 62,000 cases.
April 1042. The Federal Administrative Court rules that a chief inspector from North Rhine-Westphalia cannot claim reimbursement of the costs of sexual enhancers from the Freie Heilfürsorge. Free military welfare is limited to "expenses for maintaining or restoring fitness for police duty". This does not include the treatment of erectile dysfunction.
1043 Chief Criminal Director Rainer Pannenbäcker becomes Director of the State Office for Central Police Services. He was already head of department there a few years previously and most recently headed the "State Security" department of the Ministry of the Interior and Municipal Affairs.
1044. May 4. The first "Regional Training Center (RTZ)" is set up in Dortmund. In future, the 3,600 officers of the Dortmund, Unna, Soest and Hagen police stations will be able to complete their operational training on an area of over 5,000 square meters. Four indoor shooting ranges as well as apartments set up for training purposes, a restaurant, bank counters, classrooms and a hall that can be accessed by patrol cars will enable the simulation of a wide variety of operational situations. Further RTZs are planned in Essen, Linnich, Wuppertal, Brühl and Duisburg.
1045 Attacks on police officers: The State Office of Criminal Investigation publishes figures showing that almost 14,000 police officers in NRW were insulted, threatened or physically attacked in 2015. The number of such incidents has risen by 3% compared to 2014. In around 1,000 cases, police officers were injured in assaults, one in two of them seriously. Four cases were classified as attempted manslaughter or murder.
1046 Due to the growing number of assaults against police officers, the introduction of body cams (shoulder cameras) is now to be tested, with which operational situations can be filmed and recorded as evidence. The cameras, which are attached to the uniform, will initially be tested by 200 officers in Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Cologne, Siegen and Wuppertal.
1047th ID requirement for prepaid card users: Among the laws currently passed in the Bundestag are the provisions of the so-called "anti-terror package". This stipulates, among other things, that users of prepaid phone cards will in future have to prove their identity with an ID card when making a purchase. In the past, police investigations into cell phone users have often come to nothing because cardholders have given imaginary names when making purchases in order to protect themselves from law enforcement agencies.
1048. term "police" protected: In legal proceedings brought by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia against a company that had advertised anti-violence seminars at the internet address www.polizei-jugendschutz.de, the Hamm Higher Regional Court confirmed that the use of the term "Polizei" (police) was prohibited for entrepreneurs. The term "Polizei" is protected. The decision is intended to prevent citizens from getting the false impression that they are on the website of a police authority, even though it is a company website.
1049. June 9. The Service Law Modernization Act is passed. Among other things, it regulates the abolition of the Christmas bonus in December from 2017. This special payment will now be spread over twelve months and integrated into the monthly salary. The career groups will also change from July 2016. The previous four career groups of the lower, middle, upper and higher civil service will be abolished. They will be replaced by career group 1 with the first entry-level grade A5 and the second entry-level grades A6 and A7, as well as career group 2 with the first entry-level grade A9 or A10 and the second entry-level grade A13.
July 1050, 18. With immediate effect, the NRW police will waive the 110 euro administrative fee for false alarms at private homes, which was previously charged if an alarm system gave a false alarm and a patrol car crew had to be deployed even though there was no objective danger to the property. This is intended to encourage citizens even more to notify the police quickly when a burglar alarm is heard.
1051. August 18: Man shot dead. In Dortmund, during the attempted arrest of a violent offender and pimp, there is an exchange of gunfire between the man and a commando from the SEK. When the officers forced open the 53-year-old's front door, he immediately fired shots at the officers, injuring one of them in the eye. The 53-year-old was fatally shot when he returned fire.
August 1052: The Ministry of the Interior purchases new protective vests for the NRW police. The 8 kg vests can withstand fire from heavy weapons such as submachine guns. In future, there will be two of these vests in every patrol car.  More than 10 million euros will be made available for the procurement.
1053. September 1. New technical college location: A branch of the Duisburg location of the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration is set up in Mülheim-Dümpten. Due to the significant increase in the number of police students for the 2016/2017 academic year, the Duisburg facility no longer has space for all students, so a replacement solution is required. Around 800 young police officers and their lecturers will move into the new location, a container facility that previously served as temporary accommodation for the Ruhr-West University of Applied Sciences, in September. Before the start of the new academic year, 4,640 young police officers are already in training.
1054 The Ministry of the Interior publishes the drop-out and failure rates of police students at the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration. According to this, around 1 - 2 % of students in the 2008 - 2012 cohorts voluntarily dropped out of their studies. 5 - 6 % of the students in this cohort failed exams and therefore had to drop out of police training.
1055. September 7. The NRW police force receives the first of six aircraft in a new helicopter fleet. All old helicopters will be replaced by new Airbus H 145s by mid-2017. This will cost the state almost 65 million euros. For its future missions, the H 145 is equipped with thermal imaging cameras and high-resolution video imaging systems, high-performance spotlights and a so-called fast-roping system, which allows special forces to quickly abseil from the air. Previously, only two aircraft had these systems. One of the reasons for the purchase is the increased risk of terrorism. Despite their high engine power of over 2,000 HP, the helicopters are quieter and more fuel-efficient than their predecessors. The cockpit of the H 145 is equipped with a sophisticated flight management system and state-of-the-art communication technology. The NRW police helicopter squadron flies an average of over 2,000 missions a year, mainly missing persons and search missions. From their bases in Düsseldorf and Dortmund, the helicopters can reach any location in the state within 30 minutes at the latest.
1056. October 17. Fatal shots fired in Moers. After a traffic accident, a 48-year-old man flees the scene on his bicycle. When he is found by the police a short time later, he attacks the officers with a knife. When the officers are unable to retreat any further, they fire several shots at the drug addict.
1057. October 18. Fatal shooting: A man is shot dead by a policewoman in Hagen. He had previously seriously injured an employee in an insurance office with a machete. The victim flees into a nearby kebab store, pursued by the perpetrator. The violent offender is found by the police outside the store. When he does not drop the machete despite being asked to do so several times, he is shot dead.
October 1058. The NRW team wins first place at the German Police Swimming and Rescue Championships, taking home seven gold, three silver and six bronze medals. Commissioner candidate Karolin Kuhlmann from the Bielefeld PP alone wins gold twice and swims 100 meters freestyle in 58.01 seconds.
1059th change to the shift work model. In several district police authorities, including PP Aachen and LR Rhein-Erft-Kreis, a fifth shift is introduced on a trial basis in order to find a more health-friendly shift system. Duty is now carried out in the rhythm "2 early shifts - 2 late shifts - 2 night shifts - 4 days off", whereby at least part of the duty must be carried out on the "days off" (so-called "potential shifts") in order to achieve the weekly working time of 41 hours. In an initial survey, a good 90% of the police officers concerned were very satisfied or satisfied with the new shift sequence. The new model is intended to avoid short changes, for example from early shift to night shift.
November 1060. Silicone breasts as an obstacle to recruitment: A 32-year-old police applicant from Dortmund, who was not recruited to the police service because she has silicone implants in her breasts, can fight for her recruitment to the police service before the Gelsenkirchen Administrative Court. She was initially refused employment on the grounds that the implants could burst during a physical altercation and make her unfit for duty.  
November 1061. Five Islamists are arrested in Duisburg, Dortmund and Hildesheim. The men are accused of recruiting young people for the terrorist militia "Islamic State" and training them for armed combat in Syria. Among those arrested is the 50-year-old Duisburg travel agency operator Hasan C., who is suspected of radicalizing two young people who carried out a bomb attack on a Sikh temple in Essen in April.
December 1062. Measures after the attack. A serious attack in Berlin also casts its shadow over North Rhine-Westphalia. Four days before Christmas Eve, an unknown man hijacks a Polish articulated lorry, kills the driver and races through a Christmas market at the Frauenkirche in Berlin, killing eleven people and seriously injuring around 50 others. The perpetrator then manages to escape. The terrorist organization "Islamic State" claims responsibility for the attack. Interior Minister Jäger also orders increased patrols of Christmas markets and other major events in North Rhine-Westphalia with machine guns. After a suspect was initially arrested in Berlin, but the suspicion against him was not substantiated during the investigation, a new suspicion is directed against a 24-year-old Tunisian from a refugee home in Emmerich, who was already listed and monitored by the security authorities as a suspected terrorist. His whereabouts are unknown.
1063: Two police officers from Moers are each given a six-month suspended prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter at Kleve District Court. In December 2014, the police officers had not driven a very drunk man who had rioted in two hospitals to his home, but abandoned him on the outskirts of Moers. The drunk man was then run over on the road and killed.
1064th rescue medal. Two officers from the Siegen-Wittgenstein district, police chief inspectors Dirk Schöttler and Sven Meck, rescued three children from a burning house in Hilchenbach in 2014. The two police officers are taken to hospital with smoke inhalation, as are most of the occupants. In Senden near Münster in 2014, police inspector Klaus-Dieter Kraß jumps into the ice-cold water during an operation involving a suicidal man who has driven his car into the Dortmund-Ems Canal. The trained lifeguard manages to rescue the suicidal man and bring him to shore together with his patrol colleague. All officers receive the NRW Rescue Medal from Minister President Hannelore Kraft in 2016.
1065. decrease in domestic burglaries. For the first time, the number of domestic burglaries in NRW, which has been rising massively for around ten years, is falling again. In 2016, almost 16% fewer burglaries were committed than in the previous year.
1066 Increasing violence against police officers. There were almost 9,000 physical attacks in NRW in 2016. More than 16,700 police officers were subjected to these attacks. This is an increase of 14% compared to the previous year.

2017

1067. January 1. North Africans arrested in Cologne. The police in Cologne check hundreds of North African men and prevent many from attending the New Year's Eve celebrations on the Domplatte. The background to this is the mass sexual assaults and thefts by men from North Africa at the previous year's New Year's Eve celebrations. The Left Party denounces the police's actions as racism.
January 1068. The trade union "Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter" (BDK) complains that there are too few police officers with a migration background from North Africa in NRW. They are the only way to reach people from this cultural area. To date, around 10% of all police officers in NRW have a migration background.
1069. accusations against interior minister and police after Berlin attack. Following the attack on the Berlin Christmas market in December last year, which left 12 people dead, a fierce dispute has developed between the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior and the opposition in the state parliament over alleged failings on the part of the Minister of the Interior and the NRW police in preventing the attack. The opposition, as well as Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, accuse Ralf Jäger of having hesitated too long to take the suspected perpetrator, the Tunisian Anis Amri, into custody and deport him to his home country. Interior Minister Jäger denies any responsibility and explains that an application for deportation had no prospect of success for various reasons before the crime and could not be implemented. An independent expert appointed by the state government on the basis of the allegations to investigate possible failures and whose report found no misconduct on the part of the state government was declared biased by the opposition, as he had applied to be employed by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as a professor at a university at the time of the report. In the meantime, Amri has been shot dead by the police in Italy during a checkpoint.
1070. January 7. Fatal shots fired after knife attack. At the police station in Duisburg-Rheinhausen, a 43-year-old man stormed into the station and attacked the police officers present with a knife. Two officers then fired shots at the man, who died from gunshot wounds to his neck and leg. The 43-year-old had previously stabbed three other people during a rampage in Duisburg, injuring some of them seriously. The man came from the alcohol and drug scene.  The two young officers (21 and 23 years old) who fired the fatal shots must subsequently undergo psychological counseling.
February 1071. Police under suspicion of alcohol. Following an anonymous tip-off to Bochum police chief Kerstin Wittmeier that alcohol was being consumed by officers at various police stations in Bochum, the police stations in Bochum, Herne and Witten were searched. Both beer and liquor bottles are found in the offices. The police commissioner, who describes the alcohol findings as "very disappointing", is accused by the police and the police union of having unilaterally inspected only police stations and not criminal investigation departments.
1072. February 7. After many years, the POLAS search and information system is replaced by the VIVA 2.0 system. For the system change, 40 million personal and factual data records must be transferred to VIVA. The data migration can be completed in just four days. VIVA combines several databases: the previous process and form processing, which was previously managed under IGVP and PVP, access to the Federal Central Criminal Register and various external data systems.
1073. February 19. Fatal shot at burglar. After a 72-year-old woman in Herten alerts the police because she has heard that an unknown person has smashed a window in her apartment and has presumably broken in, the officers deployed encounter a 30-year-old man in the apartment who immediately attacks the officers with a knife. To defend themselves, at least one shot is fired at the man, who then dies from his injuries.  
1074 Police applicants increasingly fail due to language skills. As published by the NRW State Office for Police Training, Further Training and Personnel, more and more applicants for the police profession have to be rejected due to a lack of knowledge of the German language. While this affected 5.7% of applicants in 2013, 10.4% of applicants had to be rejected for this reason in 2016.
1075. March 13. Tablets in patrol cars. In a pilot project, patrol cars in Duisburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Bonn now carry tablets that can be used as mobile offices. The 100 computers used for the test phase can be used to identify missing persons and check personal details, among other things.
1076. March 16: Minister of the Interior enforces ban on biker outfits. Interior Minister Jäger announces that the new ban on rocker symbols, with which their wearers express their contempt for the state, will be consistently enforced. Rockers who show themselves outside wearing cowls will have them taken away. Such emblems are also to be removed from buildings. In addition, the State Office of Criminal Investigation will be instructed to search the websites of rocker groups for such symbols and have the sites blocked if necessary.
March 1077. Accusations under employment law against the chairman of the German Police Union. The state chairman of the German Police Union (DPolG), Police Chief Superintendent Rainer Wendt, is suspected of having wrongly received a salary as a police officer, although he has only been active for his union for years and has not appeared at his workplace. Interior Minister Ralf Jäger firmly rejects the accusation that he knew about the salary without work performance. After the affair came to light, it also emerged that Wendt had allegedly received considerable income from secondary employment in the private sector, which he had not reported to his employer, although he was obliged to do so under the state's secondary employment regulations.
March 1078. Actions against the speeding scene. The police in NRW take targeted action against the speeding scene. In Essen and Duisburg, 63 speeders are taken off the road in a special operation. The fastest driver was traveling at 90 km/h with a speed limit of 50 km/h. Illegal car racing on public roads has repeatedly caused fatal accidents in recent years. Racing has developed into a new sport.  In Berlin, a speeding driver who killed an uninvolved road user was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder for the first time.  A draft law from the Federal Ministry of Transport provides for up to ten years in prison for illegal car racing.
1079th large-scale deployment against terror. The police in North Rhine-Westphalia are under great pressure in terms of personnel due to increasing Islamist terror. Hundreds of police officers and patrol officers are needed far more than usual to cordon off areas following Islamist bomb threats. Both the carnival events in NRW and many other mass gatherings have to be guarded by numerous forces equipped with bulletproof vests and submachine guns. Due to several attacks in Europe in which trucks have been used as weapons to kill people, rubble containers and heavy goods vehicles are used as roadblocks at major events.
1080. April 11. Explosives attack on Bundesliga soccer players. The team bus of Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund is booby-trapped on the way to a soccer match against AS Monaco in Dortmund. A total of three detonations occur as the bus passes by on a thoroughfare, shattering the windows of the bus. The player Marc Bartra suffers a broken arm as a result of one of the explosions. Metal pins used to fill the bombs also penetrated a seat on the bus. Initial investigations point to an Islamist attack. The following day, a 25-year-old Iraqi man suspected of the crime is arrested in Wuppertal.  However, the suspicions against the man are not confirmed.
1081st final report of the NSU committee of inquiry. The NRW state parliament presents the final report of the two-year committee of inquiry into the series of murders committed by the right-wing extremist group "National Socialist Underground" (NSU). The group is accused of killing several Turkish citizens and a policewoman and carrying out several bomb attacks in Germany in the years after 2000 for racist reasons. The report describes a fatal failure of the police and other security authorities involved in investigating these cases. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the NSU crimes included a murder in Dortmund and a nail bomb attack in Cologne that left numerous people seriously injured.
April 1082. Incitement to murder police officers. The number of Islamist internet calls for attacks on police officers increases. In April, an Internet platform of the terrorist organization "Islamic State" calls for targeted knife attacks against police officers.  The video entitled "Attack them" gives specific instructions on how to easily distract an unsuspecting police officer and exactly where to stab in order to inflict fatal injuries. Even suitable knife types are mentioned there.
1083 The violent offender file "Sport" (DGS), which is kept by the State Office for Central Police Services (LZPD), is criticized by data protectionists and fan associations. The file stores data on soccer fans who have attracted attention in connection with acts of violence at soccer matches. According to the LZPD, the file contains the names of 4,700 citizens. Entries are to be made even for very minor incidents.  The state government agrees to inform those affected in future that they will be stored in the file.
1084 The material resources budget for the North Rhine-Westphalian police in 2017 amounts to around 454 million euros, which is 20 million euros more than in the previous year. Around ten million euros will be spent on the purchase of weapons and 65 million euros on the purchase of new helicopters.
1085 The test run with bodycams starts in five district police authorities. A total of 200 of the cameras worn on officers' bodies are issued.  The devices weigh only 150 g and cost 1000 euros each. Legislation has been passed to enable the cameras to be used in homes, as one in four attacks against police officers take place in the home.
1086. April 15. Fatal use of firearms against a confused man. In Herne, two police officers fire shots at a 30-year-old man. The man dies on the way to hospital. The officers had previously been alerted because the man had been sitting on a bulky waste sofa in the city center and had injured himself with a knife. When the police officers tried to calm him down, he ran towards them with the knife. This is when the fatal shots were fired. A female officer was also injured - possibly by a ricochet.
1087 The Bundestag decides to allow the use of electronic ankle bracelets for potential terrorists in order to monitor their whereabouts.
1088. April 27. Two deaths in Essen. In Essen, a young police officer shoots a 22-year-old asylum seeker from Eritrea. After a police patrol had been alerted to a disturbance, the man suddenly approached the officers at close range with a knife. On the same night, a 50-year-old drunk man dies in a police custody cell in Essen under unexplained circumstances.
1089 May 6. The Essen police are now also on the road with two electrically powered Nissan NV200 minibuses. The environmentally friendly vans, whose battery range is rather short, are mainly used for courier trips and as deployment vehicles for recruitment consultants.
1090. June 30. Herbert Reul (CDU) becomes the new Minister of the Interior. He replaces Ralf Jäger, who has to vacate his post after losing the state elections to the SPD.  The 64-year-old Reul is a secondary school teacher and a native of Langenfeld. After working for several years on the state executive of the NRW CDU, he was a member of the European Parliament for many years until 2017. He was also a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament between 1985 and 2004.
July 1091. Uwe Jacob resigns from his post as Director of the State Office of Criminal Investigation. He becomes the new Chief of Police in Cologne, succeeding Jürgen Mathies, who has moved to the Ministry of the Interior as State Secretary. Jacob is a police officer himself and joined the service in 1977.
July 1092: Major deployment for North Rhine-Westphalian police in Hamburg. NRW deploys 2,200 officers to the Hanseatic city to support the Hamburg police at the G20 summit. During the summit meeting of numerous heads of state and government in Hamburg, there are violent riots by rioters. Among the 196 officers injured in the riots are a large number from NRW.  The NRW officers accumulate 200,000 hours of overtime during the large-scale operation.
1093 Police historian Klaus Dönecke dies at the age of 62. The Chief Superintendent of the Düsseldorf Police Department had researched the role of the Düsseldorf police in the Nazi era, especially the atrocities committed by the police battalions, both in Germany and abroad. He was the founder of the "Geschichte am Jürgensplatz" association, had organized the highly acclaimed exhibition "Transparency and Shadows" and had been awarded a high Jewish Order of Merit and the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia for his research work.
1094 August 31. The head of the police department in the Ministry of the Interior, Wolfgang Düren, takes early retirement at his own request. The chairman of the police union critically comments on his departure that "after the change at the top of the Ministry of the Interior, there should now be someone with more police competence at this level of Department IV".  Düren's successor will be the 40-year-old lawyer and former police officer Dr. Daniela Lesmeister. Before her appointment to the Ministry of the Interior, Daniela Lesmeister was Head of the Department of Public Order in the city of Duisburg.
1095th additional posts. In addition to the 2,000 new recruits already planned, the new state government has decided to offer another 300 young men and women a place to study to become a police officer in 2017. In addition, 500 administrative assistants are to be recruited to relieve law enforcement officers of administrative tasks.
1096. small police applicants. The Düsseldorf Administrative Court declares a decree of the Ministry of the Interior invalid, which stipulates a minimum height of 163 cm for female police applicants and at least 168 cm for men. The court believes that the principle of equality between men and women has been violated. The rejection notices that had already been issued against five female applicants are revoked.
1097 Fake news. Unknown persons circulate an alleged decree according to which the police are supposed to have been instructed by the Ministry of the Interior to explicitly keep the public in the dark about migrant-related crimes. The Ministry of the Interior is obviously being discredited by the anonymous letter, which was published on the Internet.
1098 Speeders with tuned cars are increasingly becoming an area of work for the police. Tuning scenes have formed in various cities in recent years, with members attracting attention through high-speed driving in built-up areas. In Cologne and Mönchengladbach, uninvolved road users have already been killed at speeds of more than 100 km/h, and there have also been numerous serious injuries. In Berlin, a similar case resulting in death even led to a nationally recognized conviction for murder in court.  A bill for severe penalties against illegal car racing is presented to the Bundestag.
October 1099. A workshop for police vehicles is opened in Bochum. The 40 employees of the facility, which belongs to the State Office for Central Police Services (LZPD), repair not only patrol cars and motorcycles, but also special vehicles such as water cannons.
October 1100. Turkey warning for police officers and other security staff. In a decree, the Ministry of the Interior points out that employees of security-related authorities in Turkey are increasingly being spied on. Police officers and other persons concerned are urged not to attract unnecessary attention, to refrain from provocations against the Erdogan regime and to tell the truth during questioning.
1101. task force against money laundering. The state government is planning to set up a special unit made up of employees from the State Criminal Police Office, the public prosecutor's offices and the tax investigation department to combat money laundering.
1102. remuneration for set-up times. In a ruling, the Gelsenkirchen Administrative Court obliges the police to allow police officers 12 minutes per day for putting on and taking off equipment and loading the patrol car as duty time.
1103 Infiltration of the police by Arab clans. In contrast to the findings of the German Police Union for Berlin, the trade unions for NRW do not see such a phenomenon in which criminal families deliberately infiltrate members of their families into the police force. The recruitment of migrants is important for the police.
1104. December 18. Frank Hoever (57) becomes the new director of the State Office of Criminal Investigation. He was previously head of department at the Ministry of the Interior.
1105. soccer incidents increased massively in the 2016/2017 season. According to the Central Information Office for Sports Operations (ZIS), there were 13% more than in the previous year for the first to third leagues in NRW.  The number of bans issued by the police against problem fans from entering venues during high-risk matches increased by 50% between 2013 and 2016 (2016: 978 cases).
December 1106. Truck drivers as investigators. The Ministry of the Interior wants to enter into a security partnership with the logistics and cab industries. Truck and cab drivers are to be more closely involved in searches. The increasing number of cargo thefts by offenders who slash truck tarpaulins is also to be reduced by raising driver awareness.
1107 Lack of cooperation from telecommunications providers. The State Office of Criminal Investigation complains that many crimes cannot be solved because Internet providers refuse to hand over the IP data of the perpetrators. One in five cases of child pornography alone therefore has to be put away unresolved.
1108. December 28. Fatal accident involving a patrol car. Shortly before the turn of the year, a drunk Ukrainian truck driver crashes his articulated lorry into a patrol car on the 61 freeway near Viersen, which is parked on the hard shoulder with blue lights to stop the truck. A 23-year-old female police officer dies in the back of the police car, a 48-year-old female police officer and a 22-year-old male officer are seriously injured in the badly damaged vehicle.

2018

1109th Police Athlete of the Year 2017 awards, with Karolin Kuhlmann from Gütersloh District Council being chosen by the Minister of the Interior. The police commissioner set a new German police record at the European Police Championships in rescue and swimming in Budapest. She also won gold in the 4 x 100 meter freestyle relay at this competition, as well as four silver medals and one bronze. In the men's category, Jörg Niehüser, a police chief superintendent and sports marksman, was honored by the district administrator of Soest. At the German championships, he won the championship title in the 3 x 20 position competition over 300 meters prone.
1110th Interior Minister Reul announces the procurement of 7,000 bulletproof helmets for the NRW police. All 2,500 patrol cars are to be equipped with the helmets "in times of terrorism".
1111 February: The trade union "Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter" advocates the legalization of the consumption of hashish and marijuana. Criminalization is "historically arbitrary and still neither intelligent nor expedient". Only drivers should remain prohibited from consuming cannabis products.
1112. truck accidents at the end of traffic jams. The police should carry out more checks against long-distance goods traffic. The number of cases in which HGVs crashed into the ends of traffic jams in NRW rose sharply again in 2017. In 194 such accidents, 19 people died in North Rhine-Westphalia. This represents an increase of 44% within five years.
1113 The state police orchestra, which was previously based in Wuppertal, moves to Hagen in the premises of the distance learning university there.
1114 The North Rhine-Westphalian police law is to be tightened considerably. In cases of domestic violence, for example, but also against other dangerous persons, a detention period of 10 days is to be permitted. Terrorist threats are to be detained in police custody for up to one month, and people are to be detained for up to 7 days to establish their identity. Telephone calls made by people who are suspected of being a terrorist threat are to be spied on using a Trojan horse. Video surveillance in public spaces is also to be expanded
and enable the monitoring of social media. The state government's plans provoke fierce protests from parts of the opposition and the population, so that the adoption of the law is initially postponed and the new law is to be toned down. In July, 10,000 people demonstrate against the proposed law in Düsseldorf.
1115. April 19. Fatal SEK shots. Officers from a special task force shoot a 38-year-old man in Langenfeld. Residents had previously called the police because the man had reported hearing shots from his balcony. When the special task force stormed his apartment, the man fired shots at the officers. They returned fire and hit him. It later turned out that the man was only armed with a gas pistol.
1116: The highway police are equipped with 50 dashcams to investigate those who refuse to use the emergency lane. The cameras are used to film vehicles that block the mandatory emergency lane. As the vehicle passes, the camera is panned to the driver so that the driver responsible can be identified. The devices are initially being used in the patrol cars for a test phase of one year.
April 1117. Intensified action against criminal Arab family clans. Interior Minister Reul announces a crackdown on large criminal families. Around 100 stores and bars and 600 people were checked during a raid in Essen. Police, customs and the public order office arrested eight men and seized 300 kilos of untaxed tobacco and 20 kilos of cocaine. The crackdown on the clans is to be continued. Justice Minister Biesenbach announces that in Duisburg, which is heavily affected by clan crime, two public prosecutors will be assigned exclusively to deal with the criminality of large families who disregard German laws within their subculture.
1118. April 27. Rioter shot dead. In Essen, 22-year-old Eritrean Michael H. is killed by shots fired from a police weapon. The police officers had been called to H.'s apartment because of a disturbance. After opening the door, he held a knife in his hand and moved towards the officers. When he did not drop the knife despite several requests, the shots were fired. H. died at the scene despite resuscitation attempts.
May 1119. Use of prediction software against burglaries. After completing a test phase lasting several years, the NRW police now introduce the SKALA software, which is designed to process a variety of different data in order to predict the probability of burglaries and vehicle thefts in certain districts as accurately as possible. The purpose of the forecast is to deploy police forces to potentially high-risk locations in good time in order to prevent burglaries and vehicle crimes and arrest offenders.
May 1120. Extensive prior training of police officers from other professions. A study by the University of Applied Sciences shows that 51% of all young people who start training with the police have already completed or at least started training in other professions. Of the 500 police students surveyed, 4% already had academic degrees and 22% had completed an apprenticeship. A significant proportion of the young police officers came from commercial and craft professions, but also from medical professions (nurses, carers, occupational therapists, paramedics, opticians). Those who had already completed a university degree included social pedagogues and social workers, mathematicians, architects, legal scholars, business economists, industrial engineers, sports, communication and health scientists. The interviewees also had knowledge of a total of 25 different foreign languages, including Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Persian and Chinese.
1121 In Mönchengladbach, State Minister Ina Scharrenbach awards rescue medals to citizens who have shown particular courage in saving human lives. Among them are four police officers. In October 2014, POK Klaus Sikorski and PHK Reinhard Dittrich from Gescher, together with a camper, Friedhelm Schäfer, rescued another camper from his burning caravan on Lake Dülmen. The three men were at risk of suffocating from the toxic fumes or falling victim to an exploding gas cylinder. In July 2016, POK Thorsten Pohl and PK Julius Eckert rescued a drowning man from the Rhine-Herne Canal.
1122. July 13. Police violence against a Jewish professor. After an attack on a Jewish professor from the USA wearing a kippah, the victim is mistaken for the perpetrator by the police officers in Bonn. During the arrest, the 50-year-old is said to have been unnecessarily punched in the face. The actual perpetrator, a 20-year-old German with Palestinian roots, was arrested shortly afterwards.  The incident not only intensifies the debate about an increase in anti-Semitic attacks in Germany, but also calls into question the NRW state government's policy of toughness and zero tolerance in police operations.
1123 Electric mobility is making its way into the police fleet. The Wuppertal and Rhein-Kreis-Neuss police stations are receiving two BMW C Evolution Long Range electric scooters. The scooters have a range of 160 km, a top speed of 129 km/h and can accelerate from 0 - 100 in 6.8 seconds. The PP Bonn already has an electrically powered Renault Zoe and a Renault Kangoo. In Essen, two Nissan eNVs are in service with the police. In addition, two small Renault Twizy cars are currently being tested.
July 1124. Increase in personnel. In view of increasing work-intensive fields such as rocker crime, sports violence and terrorist Islamism and due to a massive loss of personnel due to retirement, the number of new police officers is being increased once again. From September 2018, 2,400 rather than 2,300 young men and women will start studying the "Police Civil Service" course at the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration.   With 11,200 applicants, the demand for this attractive profession has increased once again in 2018 compared to previous years.
1125 Violence against police officers continues to worsen. While violent crime in society is falling, violence against police officers in NRW has once again increased by 8% from 2016 to 2017. Since 2010, the number of cases in which police officers have been attacked with firearms, knives or thrown objects such as stones, bottles or ashtrays, or in which officers have been beaten or spat at, has increased by as much as 90%. The police union warns of increasing brutalization and a decline in values.
September 1126. Demonstrations in Hambach Forest tie up hundreds of police officers for weeks. In view of the imminent clearing of Hambach Forest, a wooded area near Kerpen, in favor of RWE's open-cast lignite mine, extensive protest actions form. So-called tree squatters, who have set themselves up in tree houses in the forest area of the power stations, are joined by thousands of demonstrators in several weeks of action who want to prevent the destruction of the forest. The NRW police are tied up in Hambach Forest for weeks with hundreds and sometimes thousands of officers. During the protests, a journalist suffers a fatal fall. The officers deployed are subjected to fierce violence from a small section of the demonstrators. They are attacked with twins, Molotov cocktails, excrement projectiles, iron bars and nail boards. The protests die down when an administrative court initially bans the clearing.
October 1127. Introduction of spit hoods. The Ministry of the Interior decides to test so-called spit hoods. These are hoods that are to be put on aggressive offenders who might spit at the police officers deployed. In 2017, over 900 police officers were spat at during operations. The hoods are to be tested in six authorities from January.
1128th controversial study on police violence. A scientific investigation into unlawful violence by police officers by criminology professor Tobias Singlnstein (University of Bochum) is causing displeasure within the police force. Even at an early stage of his investigation, the researcher is accused of being methodologically questionable and could lead to false results. Singlnstein receives anonymous accounts of police violence via an internet platform and processes this information in his study. Critics accuse him of being unable to verify the validity and truthfulness of the alleged incidents.
1129. December 10. 22-year-old police officer accidentally shoots 23-year-old colleague. Due to the clumsy handling of a service weapon by a 22-year-old officer during an exercise, 23-year-old police commissioner Julian Wolf is shot in the neck in Bonn at the end of November. Wolf dies of his injuries on December 10.
1130. December 12. New, stricter police law. The NRW state parliament passes a new police law, which comes into force at the beginning of January 2019. During the development phase, the state government's draft bill, which provides for a number of far-reaching new encroachments on fundamental rights, is toned down several times under pressure from the opposition parties. Nevertheless, the police's powers of intervention were significantly extended. For example, the police can now detain people for two weeks as part of a preventive detention order, e.g. to prevent terrorist attacks, and extend their detention for a further two weeks. People who refuse to provide their personal details may be detained for longer for identification purposes, and video surveillance in public places is to be extended. The police will also be able to access encrypted messages from social networks and issue detention orders to potential terrorists, perpetrators of domestic violence or hooligans.
1131. December 16. Elderly man shot dead by police officer. A possibly mentally disturbed 74-year-old man is shot dead by a 35-year-old police officer in Bochum. Residents had initially complained about loud music coming from the man's apartment. Police then had to go to the apartment three times. During the third deployment, in which three police officers were involved, the man finally reached into his waistband in the street and pointed a firearm at the officers. When he did not respond to the request to drop the weapon, the gun was fired at him. After the man died at the scene from his gunshot wounds, it turned out that the firearm was only a dummy revolver.
1132. police work at home. The state of NRW is introducing teleworking for some of its officers. An initial 1000 teleworking PCs will be provided from 2019. This is intended to promote the compatibility of work, family and care.
1133. December 31. Reinhard Mokros, President of the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration, retires. His successor is Martin Bornträger, who was previously employed as head of department at the Ministry of the Interior.  Reinhard Mokros had headed the University of Applied Sciences for five years. He had previously been deputy director for several years.
1134. in 2018, the police in NRW tapped citizens' phones in 1,600 cases. The telephone surveillance measures were mainly aimed at suspected drug-related crime.
1135 Sharp drop in crime. Crime in NRW has once again fallen sharply compared to the previous year and has now reached its lowest level since 1991. The number of domestic burglaries alone has fallen by less than half since 2015. Violent crime has also fallen sharply. It has even reached its lowest level since 1985.

2019

1136. an evidence recovery and arrest unit (BFE) is set up in the riot police in Bochum. The officers in this unit are trained in special access techniques to extract criminals from crowds of people. They are also tasked with documenting breaches of the law. NRW has so far been the only federal state that has not yet had such units. By 2021, three complete evidence and arrest task forces are to be set up in Bochum, Cologne and Wuppertal.
March 1137. The state government creates the office of police commissioner. The first incumbent is Thorsten Hoffmann. In his role, Hoffmann is to be the contact person for all police employees in NRW. They will be able to contact him without going through official channels in cases of bullying, discrimination, misconduct by superiors and other problems. As the police commissioner is exempt from the principle of legality (obligation to prosecute), he can also be entrusted with criminal cases without necessarily having to initiate criminal proceedings. Hoffmann, born in 1961, is a police officer himself, was a member of the Bundestag from 2015 to 2017 and most recently head of the Bochum highway patrol.
June 1138. The German Police Union demands that rubberneckers who obstruct emergency services should have their cell phones confiscated. The police union also advocates cameras on emergency vehicles.
1139. June 22/23. Blockade action against opencast lignite mining. The "Ende Gelände" initiative, which wants to prevent further lignite mining, occupies the Garzweiler open-cast mine with 6,000 people and blocks railroad lines to two lignite-fired power plants. The blockades are ended in a 48-hour operation involving numerous officers.
1140 New patrol cars. The BMW patrol car fleet will be gradually replaced by new vehicles by 2021. In future, a third of the fleet will consist of Ford S-Max and a third of Mercedes Vito. The vehicles offer the occupants significantly more seating and storage space than the BMWs. The vehicles are also equipped with innovations such as emergency call buttons in the ceiling and video intrinsic safety to the front and rear. The special signaling systems are particularly flat for entering parking garages. The Vito also has front step-through protection.
July 1141. Cell phone offenders. In the first half of 2019, the police caught almost 81,000 drivers and cyclists using their phones while driving. While the number of car drivers is falling slightly, more and more cyclists are being caught.  
1142. six service dogs are trained as data storage sniffer dogs. Particularly in light of several major child pornography cases, in which the search for data storage media proved difficult in some cases, the animals are now trained to sniff out USB sticks, hard drives, SIM cards and other objects. They smell certain chemicals that are processed in the data carriers.
1143 The criminal phenomenon of so-called "false police officers" is spreading rapidly. It involves cases in which unknown telephone callers pose as police officers to elderly people who are investigating a gang of burglars. The perpetrators make the elderly people believe that they themselves are under acute threat of a burglary and should leave their money outside the house so that it can be taken to safety by police officers. According to the Ministry of the Interior, this scam was used to steal 23 million euros in NRW alone in 2017.  The perpetrators appear to be predominantly Turkish nationals.
1144. April 18. Police officers shoot a 77-year-old man in a cemetery in Bochum on Maundy Thursday. The man, who was supposed to have been hunting, is said to have threatened the officers with his weapon. He was accompanied by his wife when he was fatally shot.
May 1145. A sticker from the far-right group "Identitarian Movement" is found in a Duisburg police van. An investigation is initiated against unknown persons.
1146. June 18. Fatal use of weapons. The Essen police receive a call from a man who says he wants to take his own life. When a patrol car crew arrives, the man, a 32-year-old German with Algerian roots, holds a knife to his neck. When he runs into a house and rings his partner's doorbell, several officers run after him. One of them shoots through the front door and fatally shoots the man in the chest.
1147 From the second half of the year, police officers in NRW are to be equipped with 20,000 smartphones. The devices are equipped with a messenger, an information app for data queries and a document scanner. This will allow driving licenses, ID cards and license plates to be checked against databases more quickly.
August 1148. Interior Minister Reul wants the nationalities of suspects to be disclosed in press releases in future. To this end, he wants to amend the decree on police press and public relations work. The aim is to achieve the greatest possible transparency in order to eliminate speculation that the police are trying to cover something up in this area.  Reul receives support on this point from Prof. Dr. Bliesener, head of the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, who shares his opinion. The German Press Council and several other German states are skeptical of Reul's initiative and fear discrimination against individual nationalities.  His cabinet colleague, Integration Minister Stamp, is also very critical of Reul's initiative.
1149 The FDP is calling for secondary school pupils to be able to join the police again in future. This is opposed by the current police training system, which only recruits graduates who have at least a technical college entrance qualification and are therefore suitable for the higher service.
1150. 934 new plainclothes patrol cars are purchased by the NRW police. The orders are worth almost 31 million euros.
September 1151. Photo ban for police. The Münster Higher Administrative Court decides that the police may no longer post their own pictures of demonstrations on the Internet. The judges see the publication of photos of demonstrators as an infringement of their right to freedom of assembly. The images could have an intimidating effect on participants.
September 1152. A study by Prof. Dr. Tobias Singlnstein from Ruhr University Bochum concludes that there is a high level of unlawful violence against citizens by the police. Singlnstein surveyed 3,000 people as part of his study.
1153 The police want to introduce bodycams across the board. By the end of 2020, 9,000 cameras, which are attached to the chest or shoulder area of the uniform, are to be purchased in NRW. The devices, which will cost seven million euros, will enable police officers to record operations in critical situations. It is hoped that they will have a de-escalating effect on aggressors.
October 1154. The state wants to use artificial intelligence in the fight against child pornography, as the police are reaching their limits with their conventional methods. The huge amount of data in this area of crime has meant that only 228 out of almost 1,900 cases of image material could be examined for child pornography content. A research project is now testing the automated recognition of such images.
October 1155. Following a special analysis, the Ministry of the Interior announces that a total of 19 death threats were made against politicians in North Rhine-Westphalia between the beginning of 2017 and September 2019. The phenomenon is being observed nationwide. Individual local politicians have already withdrawn from politics out of fear for their own lives and those of their families.
1156. October 30. Fatal shots fired from a police weapon. In Recklinghausen, a man succumbs to his injuries after being shot in the leg by police officers. The shot hit his leg artery. This was preceded by a request for help from citizens. When four officers arrived at the scene, the man approached the officers with a pocket knife. When he refused to put the knife down, the fatal shot was fired.
1157. November 1. Michael Schemke becomes the new inspector of the state police, replacing Bernd Heinen, who retires. The 58-year-old Schemke has been in the police force since 1977. He first went on patrol in Krefeld and then became a watch commander and squad leader there. After his promotion to the higher ranks, he was deployed as head of the Düsseldorf inner-city police force and deputy head of the special units in Cologne. The father of two sons and passionate motorcyclist subsequently became head of the special units in Essen, head of the emergency services directorate in Krefeld and finally moved to the Ministry of the Interior as head of department.
November 1158. A new major child pornography case opens up. In Bergisch-Gladbach, Langenfeld, Kamp-Lintfort and Niedernhausen in Hesse, the public prosecutor's office in Kassel opens another child pornography ring. During initial investigations, four suspects are found who allegedly abused their own six children and exchanged videos and photos of the sexual abuse. According to initial findings, they had also provided a further 1800 paedosexuals with the abuse recordings. The children are between one and ten years old. The Ministry of the Interior transfers the case to the criminal investigation department in Cologne.
1159. December 7. Police officers shoot a 25-year-old man in Wuppertal. He had previously hit cars with a hammer and also threatened people. When a patrol car confronted the man, the fatal shots were fired.
December 1160. Central office against clan crime. The premises of the "Sicherheitskooperation Ruhr zur Bekämpfung der Clan-Kriminalität" (SiKo Ruhr) are unveiled in Essen. In the new office, interdepartmental officers from the state and federal police, customs, local authorities and financial administration are to gather information and coordinate investigations against family clans. 6,500 suspects from 104 clans are held responsible for more than 14,000 crimes between 2016 and 2018.

Figure 9: Raid in Duisburg on a housing estate predominantly inhabited by members of a Romanian minority. On the far right of the picture is a Romanian police officer supporting his German colleagues. The photo was taken in summer 2017 (Source: Frank Kawelovski)

2020                                       

1161 The "Specialists to police officers" program is launched. The aim of this measure is to enable trainee inspectors who have already brought professional or academic qualifications to the police force to join the Criminal Investigation Department or the Traffic Directorate directly after their training. Technical, commercial and financial qualifications are particularly in demand. The young officers must complete an introductory course at the LAFP before joining the specialist department.
1162. January 5. The year begins with a fatal shooting. In Gelsenkirchen, a 37-year-old man is shot dead as he approaches two police officers with a knife in his hand. The man had previously struck a patrol car with an object in front of the Gelsenkirchen-Süd police station. When the violent offender, who was known to the police, did not comply with the request and approached the officers with the weapon, a 23-year-old police trainee shot the attacker.  The deceased Turk, who had been living in Germany since 2002, was later classified by the police as a mentally disturbed Islamist lone offender.  
1163 The state has now set up around 1,000 teleworking positions for police officers. The measure, which is based on a decree from December 2018, provides for criminal charges, investigation files and accounting processes in particular to be processed in the home office on the basis of high security standards in order to reconcile work, family and care.
January 1164. Stun guns. In view of 19,000 violent attacks on police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2018, the police union is calling for police officers to be equipped with stun guns, known as Tasers, across the board. The electric shock devices are intended to close a gap in weaponry between the service pistol on the one hand and the baton or pepper spray on the other.  
January 1165. The Ministry of the Interior publishes figures on knife attacks, which were collected for the first time in 2019. According to these figures, almost 7,000 crimes in which knives were used or threatened were reported to the NRW police within one year.
1166. NRW introduces a silver-grey police retirement card for retired police officers. It is intended both as an expression of appreciation for the long-serving officers and to facilitate contact with police authorities.
February 1167. During investigations into a 13-strong suspected right-wing terrorist group, an administrative officer of the North Rhine-Westphalian police force also comes under the scrutiny of investigators. The Ministry of the Interior does not want to reveal which authority the man, who has been a state civil servant since the 1990s, works for.  It later transpires that he comes from Hamm police headquarters.
1167a.  A chief inspector of the Gelsenkirchen police retires with 1,200 hours of unpaid overtime. The Ministry of the Interior has refused to pay her for the hours. The police union is calling for so-called "lifetime working time accounts" to be set up so that people can retire earlier by using up their overtime.
1168 February/March: A new type of virus known as "Corona" (Covid-19), which first appears in China and costs several thousand lives there, spreads around the world. In Germany, almost 6,000 people had been infected and 12 had died by March 15.  It also very quickly leaves its mark on the police. At the beginning of March, two female officers from Viersen are diagnosed with the disease, followed shortly afterwards by a police officer from Wesel. The first cases are also reported at the Aachen and Mülheim campuses of the University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration. Initially, the swearing-in ceremony for the 2019 intake in Cologne scheduled for March 26 was canceled and the university was also closed on March 15. The Ministry of the Interior registers the illnesses in the police force, but remains silent to the media about the number of cases.
1168a.  March. According to the Ministry of the Interior, almost 4,500 of the approximately 40,000 police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia have a secondary occupation. These activities are often related to their duties, such as training and further education or expert activities. Unauthorized sideline activities, mostly those that cannot be reconciled with the police service, have only occurred 148 times in ten years.
April 1169.  Fatal shots fired at police officer. In Gelsenkirchen, an operation against a drug dealer ends in death for an SEK officer on April 29. A group of special task forces from Münster had wanted to search the man's home, where there was evidence of firearms possession. The 28-year-old police officer was shot twice as he entered the house. The officer died an hour later in a hospital in Gelsenkirchen.
1169a.  April. Death by police gunfire. On April 16, a 32-year-old man is shot dead in Düsseldorf. The man had first threatened his parents with a crossbow and a firearm and then fired shots from the window. When special police forces with a service dog tried to make an arrest, the man fired at the dog and the officers, who returned fire.
1169b.  April. Man shot dead by police. A homicide occurs in Dormagen in which a 40-year-old man kills his father. The perpetrator is shot dead by the police shortly afterwards.
1169c.  May. Fatal use of firearms against fugitive felon. On May 25, two mentally ill and addicted criminals escape from the forensic clinic in Bedburg-Hau in the district of Kleve. The two had initially taken a nurse as a hostage and forced him to help them out of the clinic. On the run, one of the men made it to Aachen the next day. When he is tracked down by the police, he briefly takes an uninvolved woman hostage and is shot dead by police officers.
1169d.  June. Following increased operations against members of criminal clans, the Duisburg police receive threats of attack from the milieu. E-mails sent anonymously state that they have 2000 assault rifles from Turkey and Russia and that the police should stay away from the clans' districts. In Duisburg, 70 large criminal families with 2,800 members are currently under police surveillance.
1169e.  July. Officers from the Wesel criminal investigation department and the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation have to deal with a plane crash in Wesel. An ultralight aircraft with two occupants had crashed into a residential building and set it on fire. A 39-year-old woman living in the house and the two occupants of the plane died. The woman's 2-year-old child survived the accident almost unharmed.
July. Thomas Roosen has been Director of the State Office for Central Police Services since July 2020. He has gotten to know the NRW police from many different angles. Born in Kleve, Roosen was a member of the riot police, a patrol officer in Wuppertal and an investigator at the State Office of Criminal Investigation. Thomas Roosen has spent most of his professional life in the IT sector, as head of department at the LZPD NRW and as a consultant at the Ministry of the Interior. His declared goal in the new office is to further advance the modernization and digitalization of the NRW police.
1169f.  July. A planned racism study on the police is hotly debated in the NRW police force. The federal government had initially planned such a study on the recommendation of the EU, but met with resistance from Federal Interior Minister Seehofer and NRW Interior Minister Reul. While the Association of German Criminal Investigators spoke out in favor of such a study, which would, among other things, shed light on possible racial profiling by the police during checks and free the police from suspicion of lack of transparency, the police union spoke out against it. There are pros and cons on the subject within the police force.
1169g.  August. The state cabinet transfers Münster police chief Rainer Furth to temporary retirement with immediate effect. Interior Minister Reul had declared that there was no longer any confidence in Furth's performance in office.  
1169h.  August. After a controversial operation against a 15-year-old, 300 people demonstrate against police violence in Düsseldorf. The organizers had previously expected 5,000 participants.
1169i.  August. Ingo Wünsch becomes the new head of the State Office of Criminal Investigation. He succeeds Frank Hoever, who moves to Bonn as Chief of Police. Wünsch had started his career in the middle of the Cologne police force, moved to the upper and finally to the higher ranks and was most recently personally entrusted by Interior Minister Reul with the "Staff Unit for the Revision of Criminal Police Processing of Child Sexual Abuse and Child Pornography".
September 1169j. Recruitment of secondary school students. The state wants to set up a technical secondary school for police applicants who only have a secondary school leaving certificate. At this high school, the prospective police officers are to acquire the technical college entrance qualification in order to then complete the three-year dual bachelor's degree program for recruitment as police officers, just like high school graduates. In addition to general education subjects, initial police-relevant content will also be taught.
1169k.  September. In Solingen, a single mother kills her five small children. After the woman herself had called the police, the officers find the children, aged between one and eight, dead in the apartment. The reason for this is apparently that the woman was severely overworked.
1169l.  September. A patient dies as a result of an extortionate hacker attack on the IT infrastructure of Düsseldorf University Hospital. The Düsseldorf police manage to make contact with the blackmailers, who originally intended to target Düsseldorf University with the attack, and are also able to persuade them to provide the digital key for unlocking the hospital's IT.
September 1170. Right-wing extremist chat group in the police. The police take legal action against a network of 30 police officers who have been sharing pictures with right-wing extremist content such as Hitler and swastika photos, pictures of asylum seekers in gas chambers or shootings of dark-skinned people in a social network chat group for years. The center of the incident is Mülheim. In connection with the criminal proceedings, an entire squad is suspended there. Judicial search warrants are executed in numerous police stations and private homes, including in Essen, Mülheim, Moers and Oberhausen. Interior Minister Reul reacts sharply to the extremist ideas of the officers: "Right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis have no place in the police force."  However, the suspicions against nine officers weakened after some time, so that some of the suspensions were lifted.  
October 1171. The public prosecutor's office opens an investigation against six police officers on suspicion of bodily injury resulting in death. The officers had restrained a 54-year-old in Leichlingen near Cologne during an operation. The man subsequently died. A post-mortem examination revealed that he may have suffered a cardiac arrest as a result of the restraint.
October 1172. Corona training only digital. The training of several thousand prospective police officers at the University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration will be switched from face-to-face to online teaching from October 19.
October 1173. Fatal shots fired by SEK. In Münster prison on October 16, a 40-year-old inmate serving time for resisting law enforcement officers takes a 29-year-old female employee hostage with a razor blade. A large police force cordons off the prison in the middle of the city. When it comes to the raid, the perpetrator is shot dead by officers from a special task force. The inmate's motive is unclear. The man would have been released three weeks after the incident.
October 1174. The Ministry of the Interior announces that the recruitment of two Salafist extremists who had applied to become police officers was prevented. There had been relevant information about the applicants.
November 1175. The series of ATM blasts in NRW continues unabated. Up to November alone, 169 cases are registered. In some cases, explosives are now used instead of gas. The "Heat" investigation commission of the State Criminal Police Office, which has been in operation for years, estimates that the crimes are being committed by a network of around 300 men of Moroccan origin from the Netherlands.
November 1176. More police officers are suspended for Nazi chats. Once again, officers from the Essen and Mülheim police forces are affected. They belong to a joint bowling group and are said to have exchanged neo-Nazi propaganda via WhatsApp.  The Ministry of the Interior had already previously classified 169 police officers in NRW as suspects with right-wing extremist tendencies.
1176a. November. State Director of Criminal Investigation Dieter Schürmann retires at the end of the month. However, after 44 years as a police officer and 11 years as State Director of Criminal Investigation, he is not completely lost to the Ministry of the Interior. Schürmann will still be working on a number of projects in the field of security research.
November 1177. The police are looking for staff to analyze social media during major incidents in order to obtain as much information as possible on how to deal with the incident. For example, the numerous films that can be found on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram after rampages, accidents or violent mass events are to be found and evaluated. Applicants will receive a basic salary of 3,400 euros and should have a degree in computer science or social media management. The employees are to be deployed in newly established monitoring and communication centers (GMKC).
December 1178. Cologne remains the largest police authority in NRW with 4,135 police officers. The smallest police authority remains the Olpe district council with 199 officers. This means that one police officer is responsible for 302 citizens in Cologne and 675 citizens in Olpe.
December 1179. The State Office for Central Police Services has to cancel the purchase of over 1.2 million coronavirus face masks from the manufacturer Van Laack for the police. The purchase had caused a furor in the state parliament after it was discovered that the purchase had been made without regard to prescribed procurement procedures and through the personal mediation of Prime Minister Armin Laschet's son. Laschet's son works freelance for the fashion company Van Laack.
December 1180. Johannes Hermanns replaces Dieter Schürmann as State Director of Criminal Investigation after 10 years in office. The state cabinet appoints Hermanns as the new incumbent at the suggestion of Interior Minister Reul. Hermanns, who was born in Geilenkirchen, initially patrolled in Düsseldorf's old town and was a commercial criminalist in the senior civil service. After training at the Police Management Academy, he held management positions at the State Criminal Police Office (environmental, economic and corruption offenses) and subsequently at the Mettmann Police Station and the State Office for Police Training, Further Training and Personnel.  After most recently being responsible for organized crime and clan crime at the Ministry of the Interior, Hermanns wants to focus on the digitalization of the criminal investigation department.
1181 The number of cases of domestic violence has increased significantly due to the coronavirus pandemic and family members spending long periods together in close quarters. The number of cases ranging from slapping to killing partners has increased by almost 8% within a year.

2021

January 1182. In Mülheim an der Ruhr, police shoot a man in front of his home on January 6. Neighbors had called 911 to report that they had heard gunshots in the house. When the police arrived at the scene, there was an exchange of gunfire in which the 65-year-old was fatally shot. He had previously shot several times at the front door of an acquaintance living in the same house, with whom he had previously had a verbal argument. A revolver and another handgun were found on the dead man.
January 1183. The police are equipped with drones. Initially, the State Office of Criminal Investigation, the forensic investigation units of the district police authorities, the riot police and the traffic accident investigation teams of the KPB are to be equipped with drones, each with high-resolution cameras. A total of 276 officers are to be trained as remote pilots, in particular to improve crime scene and accident location surveying.
January 1184. In Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Düsseldorf and the Rhein-Erft district, a one-year test phase is launched with distance electro impulse devices (DEIG), better known as Tasers. A total of 70 of these stun guns will be issued in the authorities. The devices shoot small darts that pierce the flesh of the victim and remain connected to the Taser via a wire so that electric shocks of 50,000 volts can be applied to the body, temporarily paralyzing the person and incapacitating them. Before the shot is fired, the Taser can be used to generate electric arcs to intimidate potential attackers. As early as the end of January, the first two deployments take place in Düsseldorf and Dortmund, where a suicidal man is prevented from committing suicide and a biting Rottweiler is incapacitated.  
January 1185. In a report to the state parliament, the Ministry of the Interior declares a pilot project to locate patrol cars and handheld radios, which was launched in 2019, a success. The aim was to make the locations of patrol cars and police officers visible to the police authorities' operations control centers at all times in order to increase the self-security of the emergency services and, if necessary, to be able to bring in reinforcements in a targeted manner. The Mönchengladbach police department, the state control center, the police flight squadron and the service dog handlers from the State Office for Basic and Further Training and Police Personnel were involved in the trial.
February 1186. Police work greatly changed by corona. The coronavirus pandemic, which has now been ongoing for a year, and the associated social changes have not spared police work. Not only are entire service groups and criminal investigation departments absent due to coronavirus cases and quarantine orders, but operations have also changed significantly. Time and again, there is resistance from citizens who are advised and checked by the police to comply with coronavirus rules. During patrols, the public order offices are massively supported by the police. Criminal proceedings are piling up at the criminal investigation department for subsidy fraud in connection with coronavirus aid, spitting attacks by citizens that can be classified as bodily harm, disregarding bans on demonstrations against state coronavirus measures and trick thefts in which alleged employees of health authorities gain access to the homes of elderly people in order to steal from them. Between March and August 2020 alone, the NRW police filed around 13,600 misdemeanor charges and over 760 criminal charges for violations of the Corona Protection Ordinance. The obligation to wear masks has also reached the police forces.  In addition to the numerous problems, the pandemic is also giving the police gifts: the number of domestic burglaries and traffic accidents is falling drastically, as many people are now staying at home and road traffic is decreasing.
February 1187. Threats to police officers in private. Police officers are increasingly being threatened in their private lives by criminals from the rocker, clan and organized crime sectors. In some cases, family members are also intimidated. The police union is therefore now calling for an information block to be set up at the residents' registration offices for residential addresses of police officers.
May 1188. Chief Superintendent Guido Winkmann, financial investigator at the LKA Düsseldorf, ends his long career as a referee in the German Football League with the match between Union Berlin and RB Leipzig. Winkmann has refereed 161 matches in the 1st Bundesliga and 500 more in professional soccer. At the age of 47, he has now reached the age limit for professional soccer.
June 1189. Fatal shots. Wuppertal. The police are called because a 35-year-old man is threatening his neighbors in an apartment building. When police officers enter his apartment, the man throws a knife at them and then attacks them with a baton and "another object", according to police reports from June 14. An officer then fired shots at the man from a submachine gun, three of which killed him. An officer's bodycam records the incident.
June 1190. On the 20th of the month, the long-serving Minister of the Interior Dr. Herbert Schnoor dies at the age of 94 in his home town of Werder an der Havel. The lawyer was responsible for the NRW police as Minister between 1980 and 1995. His time in office included the hostage-taking in Gladbeck with three deaths in 1988 and the arson attack on a house belonging to a Turkish family in Solingen, which claimed the lives of five women and children in 1993.
June 1191. Three employees of the Düsseldorf police department, Maikel Stiefel, Andreas Nick and Oliver Schnitzke, are working on an infrared camera that makes it possible to detect traces of blood and gunshot residue on dark and unevenly colored surfaces that cannot be seen with a normal camera. After four years of development, the device, called "Ktvisio", is ready for series production and 100 units are being distributed to the country's forensic investigation centers. The home-made device, developed from standard components at a cost of 1,000 euros per unit, would have cost more than 12,000 euros if it had been developed by external companies.
October 1192. Michael Frücht retires as head of the State Office for Police Training, Further Education and Personnel. Frücht had headed the authority since 2015. Most recently, he led the investigation into members of a right-wing extremist chat group in the Essen/Mülheim police force. His term of office ends due to his retirement.
December 1193. 35-year-old dies in gun attack. According to media reports, a woman calls the police in Herford on the 26th of the month because of domestic violence, her boyfriend has injured her in her apartment with a stabbing weapon. In the presence of the police officers, he pulls out a firearm; the officers then shoot and seriously injure the man. He died in hospital on December 28; according to a press release from the public prosecutor's office and the Bielefeld police, the gunshot wounds were the cause. The alleged firearm turned out to be a blank-firing pistol.
1193a. After years of relative calm, the number of drug-related deaths is rising massively again. In NRW alone, almost 700 people died from hard drugs in 2021 - 300 more than in the previous year. The phenomenon goes hand in hand with a general increase in drug criminality.

2022

April 1194. Fatal SEK operation. On April 12, several shots are fired at the upper body of a 50-year-old man during a special task force operation in Neukirchen-Vluyn. Neighbors had previously alerted the police because the man had gone on the rampage in his apartment and thrown objects out of the window. When the first police car crews arrived at the scene, they were attacked by the 50-year-old man with a butcher's knife, whereupon they withdrew from the apartment and called the special units for assistance. When they enter the man's apartment, they are also attacked with a knife, resulting in the shots being fired. Despite immediate first aid by the police officers, the mentally ill man can no longer be saved.
July 1195. A lot of work for the waterway police. In the period between January and July alone, 30 people drown in North Rhine-Westphalian rivers, canals and lakes. This means that the number has almost doubled compared to the same period last year.  One of the tasks of the water police in these cases is to recover the bodies.
August 1196. Fatal use of firearms. During the forced eviction of an apartment in Cologne, the owner of the apartment dies on the 3rd of the month as a result of shots fired from a police weapon. The officers had been requested by the bailiff to evict the man, who was already known to be violent. He had only been charged with resisting police officers in June, as he had resisted the police officers' intervention during a suicide attempt. During the evacuation of the apartment, the 48-year-old man attacked the officers with a knife. After the use of pepper spray and the threat to use firearms were unsuccessful, he was shot.
August 1197. Pursuit after a vending machine is blown up. After a failed ATM blast in Königswinter, special forces pursue the perpetrators for almost 80 kilometers along the 61 freeway to Plaidt in Rhineland-Palatinate. There, the pursuing forces succeed in ramming the perpetrators' car and arresting three of the four occupants. During the operation, the vehicle and several civilian police vehicles were damaged. The fourth perpetrator is later arrested in the Netherlands.
August 1198. Man dies during police operation. In Oer-Erkenschwick, witnesses inform the police in the early evening of August 7 about a rioter in an apartment. Because the 39-year-old man put up massive resistance to the arriving officers, pepper spray was used. The man is also restrained by the police. When he then loses consciousness, he is taken to hospital, where he dies shortly afterwards.
August 1199. Fatal shots fired at 16-year-old. Patrol car crews are called to Dortmund's Nordstadt district on the afternoon of August 8. Citizens had initially informed the incident command center that a young man was running around with a knife on the grounds of a church congregation. The officers arrived at the scene and found a 16-year-old Senegalese man who had sought asylum as an unaccompanied refugee in Rhineland-Palatinate and had only moved to Dortmund a few days previously. When he tried to attack the arriving forces, eleven officers, with a knife, pepper spray and a stun gun were initially used without success. When none of this helped, at least six shots were fired from a submachine gun, fatally hitting the teenager, Mouhamed D., in the stomach, jaw, forearm and shoulder. Two days after the event, around 250 - 200 people demonstrate in Dortmund against police violence. An online petition, in which 30 professors and others took part, also called for an independent commission of inquiry by the state parliament.  Bochum criminology professors Tobias Singlnstein and Thomas Feltes question the neutrality of police investigations.
August 1200. The Mülheim location of the University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration (HSPV NRW), where several thousand police officers have been trained since 2016, will close its doors for good on August 31. The students and teaching staff will be housed in a new, large building built especially for the university at Duisburg Central Station.
August 1201. Beer advertising by the police. Due to an oversight, the Twitter account of the Essen police advertises a Bottrop beer for several hours. As it turns out, a private account of a police officer and that of the police had been mixed up.
October 1202. Fatal shot at a citizen. In Zülpich, in the district of Euskirchen, a citizen reported on October 24 that a 31-year-old man was trying to force his way into the neighboring house of his parents in the Linzenich district. When two patrol cars arrive in front of the house, the man approaches the officers with a knife. An officer then fires a shot at the 31-year-old, who dies of his injuries on the spot.
1203 Too few new recruits. The police fail to meet their target of recruiting 3,000 new officers with the new bachelor's degree course for police officers, which starts in September at the University of Police and Public Administration (HSPV). By the end of the year, only 2,670 suitable young people will have been found to start the course. Some of the police candidates are recruited so late that they can only begin their studies two months after the start of their course. In view of the fact that the baby boomers of the 1960s are now retiring, the low number of applicants is a burden for the police in the future.

2023


January 1204. On January 8, the police in Castrop-Rauxel deploy a large number of officers with the support of special task forces to tackle a 32-year-old Iranian man and his 25-year-old brother. The special forces are disguised as firefighters. The older man was suspected of preparing a serious Islamist poison attack on a large number of people based on information from the US FBI. The man was supposed to have procured highly toxic ricin. After no poison was found when the men were arrested, officers finally made a find during a second search. The attack was intended to target major public New Year's Eve celebrations. The 25-year-old brother, a prison inmate, is also suspected of the crime.
January 1205. Environmental protection camp is forcibly evacuated. The year begins with a major operation. Lützerath, a district of Erkelenz in the district of Düren, is cleared by a large-scale operation involving several thousand police officers. The village has been cleared for demolition to allow further expansion of the Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine in the Lower Rhine region. After the operating company of the open-cast mine, Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke, was given the green light in court for the demolition of the village, a large number of environmentalists, who had campaigned to stop the exploitation of lignite, took refuge in the village's houses and in tree houses in the surrounding forests. Violent clashes broke out between the climate activists and the police, lasting several days, in which numerous people were injured, both on the side of the demonstrators and the police. After several days, the last two demonstrators voluntarily emerge from a hole in the ground near the village and the village is cleared. The well-known climate activist Greta Thun-berg had also traveled from Sweden to support the environmentalists.
February 1206. Interventions in road traffic and attacks on works of art in museums, in which climate activists fix their hands to the asphalt or paintings with superglue, are on the increase. The "Last Generation" network is particularly prominent in these actions, in which considerable traffic disruption and damage to property are accepted in order to attract public attention. In NRW, 10,000 police officers are now being trained to use cooking oil and wooden scrapers to remove the activists from roadways, walls and works of art with as few injuries as possible and thus carry them away. Previously, this had to be done by the understaffed technical task forces.
February 1207. The Ministry of the Interior's idea of using retired detectives on a fee basis to solve so-called "cold cases", i.e. cases that have already been investigated without success in the past, appears to be developing into a successful model. The teams have now been able to solve two murder cases that had long been shelved. One case involved a murder from 1988, in which a 24-year-old woman was strangled during carnival in Cologne. A 56-year-old man has now been arrested as the suspect. In another case from Bonn, in which a 42-year-old man was killed in 2017, a 34-year-old man was identified and arrested in the Netherlands.
February 1208. In the case in which a 16-year-old Senegalese refugee was killed by shots fired from a police submachine gun in Dortmund in August 2022, charges have now been brought against five of the twelve officers involved. The public prosecutor's office is investigating the security guard who operated the submachine gun for manslaughter and the four other officers for assault resulting in death or incitement to do so.

Figure 10: Police operation in front of Cologne Cathedral in January 2024 (Source: Frank Kawelovski)