Hundreds of people trashed stores and clashed with police on the night of Saturday to Sunday in the German town of Stuttgart, according to local authorities.
Police said the riots happened after police conducted checks in the city center related to suspected drug dealing. Several groups then ganged up on the police officers and started to threaten them. Police were "confronted in an extremely aggressive manner, attacked and injured," the police report said.
The situation began degenerating around midnight, when hundreds of young people, assembled in small groups in streets around the city centre, began hurling stones, bricks and empty bottles at police, slightly wounding many of the law enforcers, according to the spokesman.
Many store windows were broken and stores vandalized, particularly on one of the city’s main shopping streets, as could be seen on amateur video shared on social media.
The local television channel, SWR, listed a jewelry store, a fast-food restaurant and a mobile telephone dealer among establishments looted by the youths, who also damaged many police vehicles.
Calm finally returned around 3.00 a.m., after police reinforcements were sent in. Similar incidents occurred over the past weekends, but they were much smaller.
The Brussels Times
