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CRIME

Toy radio turned police scanner becomes Mickey Mouse operation

A Mickey Mouse toy included with the most recent edition of the Disney character’s comic book has made a mockery of German police, who are investigating reports that it picks up scanner dispatches.

Toy radio turned police scanner becomes Mickey Mouse operation
Photo: screenshot from www.micky-maus.de

“We’ve received reports and detectives are finding out whether it’s in violation of telecommunications law,” Hamburg police spokesperson Ulrike Sweden told the Hamburger Morgenpost.

The white mini-radio, about the size of two matchbooks, comes with issue 12 of the €3.20 Micky Maus comic book released on Monday, and officers have picked up several of the radios from newsstands to conduct tests.

Concerned parents in Hannover have also notified authorities that their children were picking up police chatter on the radios, which look similar to iPods. But a Hannover police spokesperson told the paper that officials believe they are dealing with a limited problem.

The comic book publisher Ehapa Verlag spokesperson Elke Schickedanz told the paper that the radio, manufactured in China, was “scrupulously tested at an institute for toy safety” and should only be able to tune into normal radio stations.

A statement on the publisher’s website assured readers on Friday that media reports are of “isolated cases.”

“Hence our request to Mickey Mouse readers: The radio is exclusively designed for listening to music. Everything else is not allowed,” the statement said.

FLOODS

German prosecutors drop investigation into ‘unforeseeable’ flood disaster

More than two and a half years after the deadly flood disaster in the Ahr Valley, western Germany, prosecutors have dropped an investigation into alleged negligence by the local district administrator.

German prosecutors drop investigation into 'unforeseeable' flood disaster

The public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz has closed the investigation into the deadly flood disaster in the Ahr valley that occurred in the summer of 2021.

A sufficient suspicion against the former Ahr district administrator Jürgen Pföhler (CDU) and an employee from the crisis team has not arisen, announced the head of the public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz, Mario Mannweiler, on Thursday.

Following the flood disaster in the Ahr region in Rhineland-Palatinate – in which 136 people died in Germany and thousands of homes were destroyed – there were accusations that the district of Ahrweiler, with Pföhler at the helm, had acted too late in sending flood warnings.

An investigation on suspicion of negligent homicide in 135 cases began in August of 2021. Pföhler had always denied the allegations.

READ ALSO: UPDATE – German prosecutors consider manslaughter probe into deadly floods

The public prosecutor’s office came to the conclusion that it was an extraordinary natural disaster: “The 2021 flood far exceeded anything people had experienced before and was subjectively unimaginable for residents, those affected, emergency services and those responsible for operations alike,” the authority said.

Civil protections in the district of Ahrweiler, including its disaster warning system, were found to be insufficient.

READ ALSO: Germany knew its disaster warning system wasn’t good enough – why wasn’t it improved?

But from the point of view of the public prosecutor’s office, these “quite considerable deficiencies”, which were identified by an expert, did not constitute criminal liability.

Why did the case take so long?

The investigations had dragged on partly because they were marked by considerable challenges, said the head of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office, Mario Germano. “Namely, to conduct investigations in an area marked by the natural disaster and partially destroyed. Some of the people we had to interrogate were severely traumatised.”

More than 300 witnesses were heard including firefighters, city workers and those affected by the flood. More than 20 terabytes of digital data had been secured and evaluated, and more than 300 gigabytes were deemed relevant to the proceedings.

Pföhler, who stopped working as the district administrator in August 2021 due to illness, stepped down from the role in October 2021 citing an incapacity for duty. 

The conclusion of the investigation had been postponed several times, in part because the public prosecutor’s office wanted to wait for the outcome of the investigative committee in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament.

READ ALSO: Volunteer army rebuilds Germany’s flood-stricken towns

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