Two officers sentenced

Rabid police officers: shoplifter secretly filmed

The inglorious operation took place at Keplerplatz in Vienna-Favoriten (archive photo).(Bild: Zwefo)

Two stolen energy drink cans worth 3.50 euros in a supermarket on Keplerplatz led to a shameful operation by the intervening police officers. Together with a detective, they had to answer for their actions in court. The thief himself skipped the trial.  

The operation following the theft of two drinks cans in a supermarket on Keplerplatz in Favoriten escalated completely. A store detective who had been called in knew the 26-year-old offender and had already stabbed him in the hand. A fight broke out and the two of them started hurling abuse at each other in the supermarket office.

Judge: "Couldn't believe my ears"
The police are called. The thief hides under the desk in the office. What the officers don't know: The Viennese man is documenting virtually his entire life by having his cell phone camera running. And these recordings reveal the disgusting operation. "You've already come to the office loaded," Judge Gerald Wagner confronts the police officer in Vienna's Landl district - who is on trial together with his colleague, the detective and the thief who is injecting the process.

Mr. Rat comments on the statements made by the police officers as follows: "I could hardly believe my ears." Clapping can also be heard. "They weren't punches, they were fist bumps," the police officer justifies himself. They would have thought that the accused was carrying a knife.

The shoplifter was the driving force that provoked them. It's clear that you're not allowed to say things like that anyway.

Anwalt Peter Philipp verteidigte den Detektiv.

Bild: Anja Richter

The officer is rightly ashamed of what he himself calls a "botched operation". "Be glad you didn't get a knife. If I had seen a knife flash, you would have been dead. Then I would have wiped out your sad existence", numerous threats were made against the thief, who had also helped provoke the escalation.

"Why do you actually call him by his first name? You won't have gone to school with Mr E.," says Wagner, noting "systematic rudeness" on the part of the law enforcement officers, who are unrecognizable in court. During the trial, they present themselves as tame, polite and reformed.

Conditional prison sentences for the officers
"I should have said, 'Get off the gas', but my statements weren't much better. We were massively overstretched," the young policewoman also ruefully confessed. The arrest of the shoplifter was just as irregular as the subsequent documentation of the incident. Photos she had taken of the man's injuries were not included in the file. "Pure sloppiness", she claims. 

The police duo were each given nine months' conditional imprisonment for abuse of authority, a fine of 2,000 euros and a diversion for the detective represented by lawyer Peter Philipp. The thief will have to answer for his actions separately.