Hundreds Run Riot, Loot Shops In Germany’s Stuttgart City: Police

Sedan:

Hundreds of people rioted in the German city center of Stuttgart in the early hours of Sunday, throwing rocks and bottles at the police and looting shops after breaking windows.

“Police are currently obtaining leads and are interrogating more than 20 people who have been provisionally arrested,” authorities in the southwestern city said in a statement.

More than a dozen police officers were also injured in the clashes, he added.

“I sharply condemn this brutal outbreak of violence, these acts against people and things are criminal actions that must be prosecuted and strongly condemned,” Baden-Wuerttemberg state prime minister Winfried Kretschmann said in a statement.

Interior Minister for the region Thomas Strobl said the riots were “of an unprecedented nature.”

Sascha Binder, one of the top local MPs for the Social Democratic Party, had described the violence as “scenes of civil war”.

Tensions increased shortly after midnight due to police checks on drug use by people who had gathered near the city’s largest square, the Schlossplatz.

Clashes ensued, as the groups rioted, using sticks or poles to break the windows of police vehicles parked in the area.

Police estimated that around 500 people were involved in the riots, which also left stores along neighboring Koenigstrasse, a major shopping street, looted.

Police requested reinforcements and could only quell the violence several hours later.

Videos posted on Twitter showed people breaking windows, leaving products strewn on the streets.

A jewelry store was completely emptied and a mobile phone store was destroyed, according to regional broadcaster SWR.

Small clashes had erupted in the center last week between police and youth groups.