On Monday evening, more than twenty police cars drive through Langstrasse. A large demonstration in District 5? No, the reason is much more trivial.
When the police are on the road in an emergency vehicle, they usually don’t do it for fun. Unlike last Monday evening. Iconic picture of the Sechseläutenplatz.
It’s Monday evening, soon the hand on the clock will jump to eleven. A cold wind blows and brings nothing but silence: the bars in Zurich’s Langstrasse district are either closed or have hardly any guests. The streets are correspondingly quiet.
But then tension suddenly arises: blue lights in Langstrasse. A box van drives from Helvetiaplatz in the direction of Limmatplatz. And then another and another, in between an armored truck, finally more vans. There must be a total of more than twenty vehicles driving behind one another in a closed column.
That’s weird. Is there perhaps an unauthorized demonstration at Limmatplatz? Or are they football fans? Both seem unlikely. A rally would have to be quite large for the police to dispatch 20 emergency vehicles and armored cars at once. And there were no football games on Monday. And there was absolutely nothing going on that would have called for such a police presence.
In addition, the emergency services were in full gear and with flashing lights, but without sirens and at a normal pace. Something was wrong there; couldn’t be right.
Exit took place without permission
When a police officer answered a question from a passer-by and explained that the vehicle parade was a farewell party for a colleague, it sounded more like a joke. However, the police did not publish any of their reports, as they often do, especially with larger operations. In the other newspapers: nothing either. No evidence of any other reason anywhere; but the farewell party didn’t seem plausible.
A look around the neighborhood didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary either. At the police station on the military road, two vans were parked at an angle, but what does that mean? Even the police occasionally park a little unclean. Everything quiet and unobtrusive as always, especially on a Monday late evening. And at Limmatplatz, there were no signs of a major event either.
A journalist from the weekly newspaper PS also noticed this action and probably just as suspicious. He looked into the matter and found out that the police parade was actually dedicated to an officer who retired after a long service. More than thirty emergency services were involved in the jaunt. Thirty police officers who – during their working hours – obviously had nothing better to do than drive around for fun.
What is piquant about the exit is that it was not agreed with the command. This is confirmed by Judith Hödl, the media chief of the Zurich city police. “The action was certainly well intentioned. But that’s not possible on this scale. And certainly not without permission,” says Hödl.
The deceased had been in the service of the Zurich city police for over thirty years. However, he did not hold a managerial position. Judith Hödl cannot quantify the exact number of vehicles and police officers who drove through Zurich in a convoy on Monday evening. However, it is probably true that there were “more than twenty” cars.
Police promise improvement
According to Judith Hödl, the city police will now initiate internal investigations. However, she also emphasizes that all officers involved would have been ready at any time if an emergency call had been received. In addition, there was little going on that evening, which is why the campaign was carried out spontaneously. Nevertheless, the undertaking was “clearly oversized”, according to Hödl.
The city police now want to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future and that retirements are always celebrated in the usual setting.