In an unbearably brazen manner, a man on the Berlin suburban train attacks a woman. Pushes her out of the train. The man from Gambia reacts to hints that she will call the police and makes it clear that he has nothing to fear from the police, as can be seen on a video that is circulating on the net – and according to users is sometimes also quickly censored there. Only one man in the rather empty suburban train tries to interfere verbally and help the attacked woman. One scene shows another man hurriedly getting off – as if he did not hear the woman’s cries for help at all.
The video starts with a scene in which the man has built up aggressively in front of the woman kneeling on the floor next to a dog. The aggressor screams and yells, but the words are not audible. Among other things he yells several times in a scornful tone of voice: “Call the police”. The woman tries to avoid him. Once she holds her arm in front of her face to protect herself. She also asks the other inmates for help, more and more desperate. Not to be seen on the video: The 22-year-old is said to have kicked the woman, who may have come to the aid of another mentally retarded victim whom the man also attacked, in the stomach. Here is the video:
In fact, there is also a man who unsuccessfully and only verbally tries to calm the aggressive foul-mouth – but this does not stop the attacker from continuing to yell. At the next stop, the man pushes his victim onto the platform, goes after her and starts a scuffle. As he leaves her, he stands on the platform, still scolding, while the woman continues to ask for help: “Can you please help me, please. I’m being beaten up, please.” The attacker walks unhindered up the stairs and away.
Interesting is the way of coverage. The incident is reported in the major media, but one decisive aspect is largely either completely ignored or at best mentioned in passing: the obvious origin of the attacker, who only speaks broken German. Sometimes even the arms of the man are pixelated – which can only have one logical reason – one should not see the skin colour. (Screenshot below)
As much as on the one hand origin and skin colour should generally not matter – in this case they do and are of public interest. For in view of the current “Black Lives matter” movement, the incident almost inevitably raises the question of whether the fact that the attacker was a colored person played a role in the fact that only one passer-by intervened in an appeasing manner and the others ignored the cries for help.
Likewise, the question would have to be asked why the man apparently considered himself untouchable by the police and whether this has a connection with the fact that today, officials must have massive fear of accusations of racism and discrimination and, according to insiders, are often downright afraid to take action against people with a migration background and, above all, with a different skin colour. After the new Berlin anti-discrimination laws, they are even under general suspicion.
Imagine for a moment what the media echo would have looked like in a reversed constellation: if a white man had attacked a colored woman so brutally and no one had come to her aid. Would this also have been presented as an individual case in which the origin of the victim and the perpetrator as well as fundamental conflicts in our society mattered in no way? Or as evidence of racism and xenophobia, which would then have been the subject of much discussion?
The police have now identified the suspect. He is from Gambia. He was released immediately.