The way ticket inspectors of the Deutsche Bahn German train system savagely dragged a black man out of a train in Munich has sparked outrage and triggered accusations of racism.
In the following video filmed by Natalija Miletic, one of the passengers, the man is seen clinging on metal handrails while the two inspectors forcefully struggle to get him out of the train.
One of the inspectors tries to remove the black man’s hands from the handrails, while the other grabs his neck as he leans back towards the doors.
“It’s absolutely not OK what you’re doing, the guy didn’t do anything to you,” the woman filming the scene can be heard telling the inspectors.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, this is racism what you’re doing,” she says, adding: “Why are you doing this? He paid.”
The controllers eventually manage to get the man out on the platform and bring him to the ground, pressing his face against the asphalt.
The woman filming the scene shouts at the controllers saying they are treating the man that way “because he’s black.”
The man, who is reportedly a 48-year old Nigerian, failed to produce a valid ticket when the inspectors came up to him during the check.
The witness who filmed the incident and later described it to HuffingtonPost.de, said the inspectors asked the man to show an ID card and pay a €60 fine. The man, however, only had €9 in cash, which he needed for food. The inspectors collected the €9, saying he still owed the rest.
Deutsche Bahn, the company operating trains in Germany, claimed that the man acted aggressively and refused to leave the carriage, prompting the inspectors to apply physical force. The witness, however, described the man as having remained calm.
Ms Miletic posted the video to her Facebook page with the caption: “This is what happens if you are caught without a ticket on the S-Bahn. Being black didn’t help either, on the contrary!”
The video has so far garnered almost a million views with several thousands of comments under it.
The viewers are quite divided on whether it was right or not for the inspectors to behave the way they did. Some hold that the incident had nothing to do with racism. But according to others including the woman who filmed the scene, racism played a big role.
Police in Munich have confirmed they are investigating the incident.