On November 19, a broad alliance called for a nationwide large-scale demonstration against racist police violence in Dortmund, which was attended by about 2,500 people. The specific reason was the cruel murder by the police of 16-year-old Mouhamed L. Dramé in Dortmund's Nordstadt district.
The Senegalese teenage refugee was murdered in the most heinous way with a machine gun by Dortmund cops on August 8. Since then, a number of details have come to light that once again illustrate the cruel behaviour of the cops. For example, it turned out that Mouhamed did not understand the languages with which he was addressed. This means that he didn’t even know what exactly the police wanted from him. Also, it has now been proven that the trigger of the machine gun was pulled not even a full second after the Taser was used. This, of course, makes the police's statement that they tried everything in their power before killing Mouhamed not very credible, even if you were to believe them before.
Organizations and initiatives from various cities for those murdered by the police attended the demonstration, demanding clarification and justice in the respective cases. These many murders by the police were denounced combatively in speeches and slogans. The class nature of these murders is clear - the German state sends its police into working class neighborhoods to harass, beat and kill us. Meanwhile, migrants and Germans are pitted against each other, so that the people would rather stir up hatred among themselves than against their oppressors.
But not only the German police is trained to murder. The family of Sammy Baker from Giessen, who was murdered on August 13, 2021 by Dutch cops, took part in the demonstration. Sammy was in Amsterdam with friends on the occasion of his 23rd birthday, when he suddenly appeared confused and disoriented and it was apparent that he needed medical help, which is why the police was called. Sammy himself kept desperately demanding a doctor and there were even psychological professionals on the scene, but they were simply sent away. Instead, he was surrounded by the 7-8 cops, got overpowered from behind and then shot by two cops. A literal execution in broad daylight, in front of local residents. In a speech, the mother demanded that people unite against police violence and fight it together.
The demonstration moved through the Nordstadt, the neighborhood where Mouhamed lived and eventually was murdered. There were several intermediate rallies, including one in front of the Police Station North - Mouhamed's murderers. In front of the station, the demonstration started loudly chanting "Murderers!" and "Blood, blood, blood on your hands!". Frequently, the moderators of the demonstration brought forth the demand to permanently close the North Station. There was a shared consensus on the part of the organizers leading up to the demonstration saying that no party flags should be taken to the event. The correctness of such a decision aside, the MLPD has made itself very unpopular by insisting on opposing this consensus, so that they were promptly excluded from the demonstration by the majority of the demonstrators and relegated to the back rows.
