Thanks to the criminal proceedings now being under way, the story of Dominik Brunner is ever-present in the media. Again.
A short time ago, he was the national Bavarian hero. He had courageously protected children who had been threatened and pressed for money by some adolescents or young adults in a Munich S-Bahn train. He paid dearly for his courage by being ruthlessly and most brutally beaten to death.
I was horrified. It annoys me to hear about violence and pressure in the vehicles of public transportation. The eruption of irrational violence, the extreme brutality and the abrupt end of Dominik Brunner’s life give me pause.I got scared of the future and mourned Dominik Brunner. Also, I felt most empathetic towards the misery of his family.
However, even early on I was a little worried about how easy the media had oversimplified the matter. Having found their hero, they reported about a nice person and well-loved entrepreneur. He had an unblemished reputation and many friends, all of whom praised him to the skies. Being a courageous citizen, he protected the weak. Protecting right and order, he died a martyr’s death. He was beaten to death by undesirable elements of our society.
Isn’t that a beautiful cliché? A wonderful prejudgement? But also a condemnation in advance of trial with respect to the culprits? Isn’t it more or less a call for lynch law?
And indeed, the press veneer soon got some scratches. Some trustworthy witnesses said that the victim had actively attacked his pursuers; even that he had been the first to strike. Well, this kind of dampened the enthusiasm, but nobody cared to give it very much attention.
Of course, nobody can condone it if criminal adolescents pursue and frighten citizens who countered their attacks. Yet it is probably not the wisest way towards de-escalation to hit them first (apparently even with the words: “You asked for this”).
A mature and well-educated adult should basically be better able to control his own emotions even in difficult situations than some drunken adolescents who obviously belong to the anti-social milieu. No matter how hard it is.
According to the latest information, it seemes like Dominik Brunner died of a heart attack due to his (certainly well-founded) excitement and his already deficient heart. To me, that sounds a little different from what I read in the newspapers earlier.
And all this should at least make the media (and those who are behind the media) thoughtful. They would be well advised to stop publishing all those stereotypes.
Personally, I have learned from the “Dominik Brunner Case” that it is a good thing and important to courageously stand before the weak and threatened. And I assume that a wise procedure with a strategy of de-escalation would probably have made it possible to prevent the worst even in this case. That gives me courage and optimism.
Another (secondary) lesson learned could be that, even when confronted by “undesirable elements” and when really angry, you should not hit first.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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