The establishment of a joint contact point for the Aachen police and the City of Aachen's public order office at Peterstraße 44 is taking shape. The joint office is due to start operating next year. On August 20, Aachen's Lord Mayor Marcel Philipp and Chief of Police Dirk Weinspach signed a cooperation agreement at a press conference. The aim is to have a strong presence in the bus station area to ensure greater security and order.
As a main traffic junction, the Aachen bus station area is a year-round meeting point for people from the drinking, homeless and drug scene. Pronounced and varied social problems, aggressive begging, openly displayed alcohol and drug consumption as well as dissocial behavior are part of the street scene at the Bushof, the neighbouring Kaiserplatz as well as at the Elisenbrunnen and Pontstraße.
Police Commissioner Weinspach put it in a nutshell: "We want to be present and approachable - where people need us. It's not just the objective crime figures that are important. Our common goal is to strengthen the subjective sense of security of Aachen's citizens."
The police have been using video surveillance at the bus station since 2017. The municipal public order office has been successfully implementing Aachen's stricter street regulations since August last year. In the past, the police and public order office have often worked together to carry out checks, and these will be continued and intensified in the future. The permanent presence of security and law enforcement officers is a further contribution to strengthening citizens' sense of security.
"In the truest sense of the word, the colleagues from the public order office and the police will work together and patrol together," announced Dirk Hoff, Head of Police Station 1 in Aachen.
The conversion to a contact point will take around a year and work is due to start soon. In the building at Peterstraße 44, additional office floors will also be occupied above the "Joint Contact Point" by the Head of the Department of Security and Order of the City of Aachen as well as the Specialist Service of Police Inspectorate 1 of the Aachen Police Headquarters.