Photo: black5_460 (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Beating up other people and being celebrated by RTL staff. That’s only possible if you’ve chosen a very specific profession.

A man has been planning a crime for weeks. Three men beat up another man. There’s drug dealing, drunkenness at work and falsified reports. The entire press in the country is reporting on it. The entire press? No. There’s hardly a line about these cases on RTL. What happened? Why is our RTL hiding what’s going on in the Gare district?

Anyone who has ever scrolled through the „national news“ on RTL.lu knows that copied police bulletins make up a large part of RTL’s reporting. The reports sound spectacular and are pretty one-sided. Plus, these articles are entertaining because of the language RTL uses. For example, in the article of May 21, 2023 entitled „Two aggressively intoxicated men spent the night in a police station“ it says: „The police also write that two more intoxicated people in the city were allowed to spend the night at the police station on Sunday“.

If you read the article by RTL, you naturally have no chance of finding out what really happened. Were the two men who were „aggressively intoxicated“ also the ones who were „allowed“ to spend the night at the police station? Why does RTL feel the need to include the word „aggressive“ in its title? After all, the word police is not used at any point in its report. And was one of the people RTL writes about here also the person who was beaten and seriously injured by police officers in the detention cell at night? Only a few months after, we learned about this incident through reports in Wort and Quotidien.

Other media are responsible for journalism

The facts go back to the night of May 20, 2023. At that time, a 43-year-old man was taken to the police station at the city station and was supposed to spend the night in a detention cell. However, 3 police officers who were not involved in the arrest entered the cell of the arrested person. The word writes: „The victim is said to have suffered serious injuries, which were also recorded in a certificate by the doctor who arrived later“. But if one had only been informed about it through RTL at the time, one would have heard practically nothing of it.

The fact that the case only became known in July 2023 was because a superior ordered the falsification of the police bulletin - as the word reports. A total of 4 police officers are being held in pre-trial detention. During the investigation against them, a drug ring is also uncovered within the police station. The word also brings to light details about rituals and alcohol consumption at the police station. As one of the consequences, the police unit in question was disbanded.

RTL likes to boast about being the fastest medium in the country. They are usually the first on the scene to report an accident and have the police bulletins already in the news before the police publish them on their website. As a rule, RTL not only copies police reports, but also press releases from the prosecutor’s office or other institutions involved. However, when police violence is involved, RTL falls into a kind of wait-and-see, relativizing minimalism.

Start of a special storytelling

On July 10, 2023, the Wort reported in the article „Serious bodily harm - violence in action: Three police officers arrested“ the arrest of 3 police officers on suspicion of „serious intentional bodily harm“. The headline in the Tageblatt is: „Three police officers arrested for police violence“ and in L’Essentiel: „Accusés de violences, trois policiers arrêtés à Luxembourg“.

RTL just decided to omit the allegation of police violence and serious bodily harm from its title. And this, even though it is called that in a letter from the prosecutor’s office. The police violence is even relativized as „handling“ and the victim is negatively focused on: „3 police officers arrested for handling an intoxicated person“. In most RTL articles in the series, the facts are simply summarized with the following sentence: „The background is the handling of an intoxicated person, who should be brought to the cell on May 20, 2023, to be released.“ That is quite minimalist for a medium that otherwise provides longer articles including picture galleries for every car accident.

Details are disclosed - and ignored by RTL.

Two weeks later, word came that the case had been traced: The victim was helplessly handed over to three police officers and the act was then covered up by a superior who had the report rewritten. RTL took its time, but then reacted two days later with a TV report on the „Police violence case“. Without giving any details, the report first summarises the allegations from the prosecutor’s report. Then RTL introduces its interview partner: the spokeswoman for the police union.

This spokeswoman is the first to say that the presumption of innocence applies and that one cannot say anything in itself until the case is concluded. RTL then explains with the help of a graphic that most cases of alleged police violence are ultimately dismissed by the court. The report then drifts to the topic of „bodycams“ so that the spokeswoman for the police union can reiterate her position here once again: More needs to be done to protect officers.

Diversion tactics

On August 10, RTL revisits this issue. And again via an interview with the spokeswoman for the police union. The title later on RTL is: „A police uniform is worthless today, there is a lack of respect“. RTL writes: „Whether police violence is increasing or not, it is not possible to say for sure. In any case, as a police officer, you are more visible these days and the respect for the uniform is certainly no longer there.“ And further: „How does police violence arise? She would not like to say that police violence arises out of frustration or anger, but it would simply be the case that a police uniform is no longer worth anything today,“ until RTL „journalist“ Annick Goerens turns the interview to the topic of crime.

The article states „It would be quite possible that crime has increased because there are now many foreign citizens running around the station dealing drugs and because the population is also growing, according to Marlène Negrini.“

Later in the day, the press reports that searches have now been carried out as part of the investigation into the arrested police officers: Due to suspicion of drug trafficking among other police officers from the same unit. RTL is posting a copy of the prosecutor’s press release online. It is hard to imagine that the police union spokeswoman did not know in the morning that this search had taken place the previous day and that the news would soon reach the media. Her media diversion maneuver, consciously or unconsciously supported by RTL, therefore comes at exactly the right moment.

Freedom for the police!

While other media outlets focus on the issue of police violence, RTL’s next issue is mainly about the question of why the police officers are still in pre-trial detention. The investigations into police violence result in an „incident“, which will not be described further from now on.

The next „editorial guest“ to discuss the issue will be Police Minister Henri Kox on August 25. RTL „journalist“ Francois Aulner pulls off the acrobatics of using the word „presumed“ twice in one sentence before his first question, not mentioning the accusations and then immediately changing the subject to talk about the challenges facing police officers. The police minister gratefully accepts the offer, saying that the „concerns and problems of police officers“ should be „respectfully addressed in everyday life“. It is stated that „aggressions in society have increased“ and this is the problem that the police minister wants to address. RTL has managed to turn a scandalous case of police violence into a propaganda show for the police.

A good reputation

After the police officers were finally released, further investigation is underway. The question of how long the police officers would have to remain in pre-trial detention is, by the way, the only lead that RTL is independently investigating and seems to be interested in. In mid-October, RTL published a report entitled: „Allegations of police violence: Why were 4 police officers in pre-trial detention?“. There, RTL completes the list of people who are allowed to speak about the case (police union, police minister) with: the lawyers of the accused police officers. It’s not enough that these lawyers are allowed to explain their point of view without being confronted, RTL even gives them space to question the other media outlets that covered the case: „Lawyer Jean-Marie Bauler also thinks that this should be handled more neutrally. „When they were taken into custody, there was always something to read about them in the media. Now that they’ve come out, it’s pretty much gone.“ As for the allegations against his client, he worked at the Gare police station for eight years and also had „a good reputation with his superiors.“

If RTL TV can conclude the case with the statement of a defendant’s lawyer that the police officer had a good reputation, then no one needs to worry about the new revelations that were published a week later. It turned out that the police officer had already sent the name, date of birth and photo of his future victim to 13 colleagues within the Gare police office 2 months before the incident, in an email that ends with the words „War has been declared“.