• Cop Map – Report cops in your area

  With the Cop Map have created an online map to report, see and avoid police presence in public spaces.

  The police are not friends and helpers for everyone. Many citizens* usually have few or no encounters with the police in everyday life, feel protected by them and maintain trust in the institution. But who does the police protect, at whose expense? Some social groups experience the police only as a danger from which they have to expect no protection, but regular harassment, arbitrariness, abuse of violence. People of Color, people with unclear residential status, homeless people, demonstrators* often experience unfounded and disproportionate attacks and abuses of power. The recent events at the G20 demonstrations or the absurd police violence against a suspected bicycle thief at the Kottbusser Tor in Berlin are only a few prominent examples of a structural problem. The fact that most cases of police violence are not prosecuted or prosecuted due to internal investigations and esprit de corps and that the institution often presents itself as immune to criticism does not make things any easier.

• The new police task laws aggravate the situation

  With the reform of the police laws passed in Bavaria and pending in many other federal states, the police will gain even more power and everything will get even worse. Body cams, preventive monitoring of your communication and data manipulation, DNA analysis for racial profiling and unlimited preventive detention without public defenders*: the new Police Task Act (PAG) in Bavaria has it all. The new powers in the police laws are as far-reaching as they have not been since 1945. Central to the justification of police interventions in the fundamental rights of people is, among other things, the vague concept of the “imminent danger”. What is an “imminent danger” is defined by the police on its own authority. And it is preventive, but it does not even need a concrete reason or suspicion. This opens the door to police arbitrariness and disregard for fundamental rights. Those for whom policewomen* have always meant a danger rather than security and cause for joy continue to suffer as a result. But even beyond this, the PAG has rightly received harsh criticism from many parties because it involves massive invasions of privacy and the blurring of boundaries between the police and the secret service. The police themselves thus become a danger to freedom, democracy and human rights.

• The police - a threat to fundamental rights and freedom

  Even those who have the privilege of not meeting policewomen* at all, or only as “friends and helpers” in their everyday lives, should recognise a threat to an open, democratic and free society with the new PAG in place. In different ways and in different intensities, all are now potentially affected. Therefore it is necessary to name this danger as such, to protect oneself and to show solidarity with other affected persons.

• Cop Map: Report cops near you (and avoid them)

  We turn the tables, because the threat lurking everywhere is the police! Therefore we developed the Cop Map together with the Polzeiklasse. With the Cop Map you can report worldwide the danger by the police in the public space and get a quick overview of where cops are near you. With a few clicks you can quickly and easily report and avoid operations, or make them visible to others who want to avoid the danger. You can also see surveillance cameras and police stations near you. To keep the map as up-to-date as possible, the reports have got a timestamp and remain visible for two hours before disappearing again. No personal data is collected, so the map can be used completely anonymously.

• What was conveiced as an experiment, developed into a tremendous outcry

  In the first days the Cop Map had about 400,000 visits and 20,000 reports of police activity. This shows that there is broad skepticism in society about police actions, that such a tool has (perhaps improved) potential and that the time is ripe for a critical debate about the police. The media coverage was also astounding: after some media had accompanied the start of the action with a factual (and police critical) reporting, the Cop Map made waves in the tabloid press. From then on the events overturned: German parties CDU and AfD demanded the deletion of the site, the police unions reacted with extreme indignation and, as usual, rejected any criticism of the institution. While the Berlin police refused a statement and referred to the Munich police, the Munich police were relatively calm and humorous. There were even a few policewomen* who spoke openly about our concern and spoke out for self-criticism within the institution. At some point it all became absurd: the German liberal party FDP filed a catalogue of questions to the German Government, and the conference of interior ministers found it more important to discuss how to deal with the Cop Map instead of dealing with topics like neo-Nazis or right-wing extremist networks in the Bundeswehr. Despite the outcry of the politics and (expectable) biting reflexes on the part of the police, it seems most important to us that all media talked about police violence and racial profiling for one week.

German Press

International Press