Overview

• On the evening of August 14 in Mainz, a 67-year-old man repeatedly pulled a red emergency cord in a hospital’s barrier-free toilet and then triggered the hospital fire alarm.
• When no assistance arrived, he pressed a hotel emergency button in the Mainz-Neustadt district to gauge response times.
• Police arrived at the hotel where he initially admitted activating the alarms without cause but then refused to identify himself and became hostile.
• Officers detained him to prevent further false alarms and to protect public safety, according to Polizei Mainz.
• He faces prosecution for misuse of emergency calls, which carries a potential fine or up to one year in prison under German law.