When several people were attacked in front of the Thuringian State Chancellery in Erfurt in the summer of 2020, the surveillance cameras recorded these acts. However, according to police officers, the quality of the images is poor.
Erfurt (dpa/th) - When investigating the attack on a group of young people in front of the Thuringian State Chancellery in summer 2020, the quality of the available video recordings made the work of the police more difficult, according to an official. For example, the recordings of the surveillance cameras of the government headquarters would not have allowed the faces of the suspects to be clearly recognized, a police officer said on Tuesday in front of the Erfurt district court. "Only with the recordings: We couldn't have recognized anyone there."
In order to be able to track which attacker acted how on the night of the crime, he based his clothing, among other things, on their clothing. All in all, the recordings were "not of maximum use in terms of quality," said the police officer. "We had to live with what we were given." Some of the recordings were "so milky" that "we couldn't save much anymore".
According to the man, he was responsible for evaluating the videos that existed of the attack. At that time he was on duty with the riot police, which had been called in by the State Criminal Police Office to support the evaluation. The majority of the videos come from the State Chancellery's surveillance cameras. There is also a cell phone video of the attack. When the recordings were shown in the courtroom, it became apparent that the mobile phone video was of a significantly higher quality than the videos from the State Chancellery's surveillance camera.
The public prosecutor's office in Erfurt has accused five men between the ages of 24 and 32 in the proceedings. She accuses them of having participated in the attack on numerous young people in the Hirschgarten about two and a half years ago. The Hirschgarten is a green area and is located directly in front of the Thuringian State Chancellery. All of the accused have since admitted in court that they were involved in the robbery.
Several police officers were involved in evaluating the video recordings. Among other things, they edited the videos in such a way that they inserted red arrows over the alleged attackers. These arrows move with the suspected attackers, so that at least in phases it is possible to track who was where and when and who hit or kicked.
In some cases, however, the recordings were taken from such a great distance or were of such poor quality that even through enlargements it is not possible to determine what a suspected attacker was doing at a certain time, the police officer said. In such situations, he and his colleagues would have deliberately dispensed with markings. "You can see how pixelated the recording is, even we can't improve anything more," said the police officer about a recording during his testimony.
According to the police officer, the police's technical equipment was also not ideal for evaluating the videos. He and his colleagues would not have had to manually insert the red arrows into the videos just once – but over and over again. "They don't stay with the person," said the police officer. It is technically possible for computer programs to permanently attach markings to people in videos. "But we don't have that." It was therefore very time-consuming to make the markings in the videos.
