Video surveillance at the Hofgarten "Is this going in the right direction?"
Bonn · In addition to the Brassertufer, the Bonn police also monitored the Hofgarten by camera for the first time at the weekend. While some have no problems with it, others view the video surveillance sceptically.
Although the video surveillance tower of the Bonn police stands quite prominently between the Hofgartenwiese and the Academic Art Museum, it is apparently hardly noticed. At any rate, the young man from Cologne who sat there with a friend on Saturday evening didn't notice it when he came. "Now I feel like I'm being watched because I know he's there," he said after it came to his attention. But he took it with good humour. "As long as he works better than the video assistant in the Bundesliga, it's fine.“
In any case, the two had no problem with that trailer being there now, because it's supposed to be there for their protection. That, at any rate, is the police explanation: the Hofgarten, with its condition that "favours the commission of crimes," will initially be observed with the mobile video tower until the end of October, as reported. The aim is to curb especially assault, robbery and sexual offenses and to be able to act against them more quickly.
Police: Video surveillance in Bonn only at relevant times
The video observation and image recording does not take place continuously, but at relevant times for the police, at the Hofgarten mainly in the afternoons and evenings and especially on weekends. Peter, who had a view of the trailer from the stairs of the Academic Art Museum, approved of the measure. "I'm not doing anything wrong, so I don't mind if it's recorded," the Italian native said. He said he knows from a city in Belgium that such a measure has had a good effect.
"Is this going in the right direction?" wondered Adnan Isufi, on the other hand. He was waiting with Lukas Wagenbach on the lawn for friends. Crime then shifted to other areas of Bonn, he said. At least the drug trade: "I've also been approached here before to buy something," said Wagenbach. He found it alarming that it was not explained what happens to the recorded data. The police had not mentioned that in their current press release. There’s an older message in the press portal of the police: Already in the spring a trailer was set up on the Poppelsdorfer avenue near the castle. The information about it says that on the one hand officers observe the events live and on the other hand the recordings are deleted after 14 days.
Video surveillance also on Brassertufer
"We do not find it so good: we feel disturbed in our privacy," said the two. But to go somewhere else because of it, they didn't want to do that either. "I'm not going to let it ruin my day," Wagenbach said. Most people probably felt the same way; at any rate, there was some activity on the Hofgartenwiese thanks to fine weather, and there was no impression that people were fleeing elsewhere, such as to the Alte Zoll or Kaiserplatz.
There was also quite a bit of activity at the site of the second police video tower on Brassertufer opposite the opera. Asked if she felt safer as a result, one young woman replied, "I simply don't go to the Rhine at dark times without an escort." Video surveillance will not change that. (Original text: Stefan Knopp / Translation: Mareike Graepel)
