About three weeks ago, a 64-year-old man collapsed during a police operation in Berlin - he died in the hospital on Thursday. A police spokeswoman confirmed the death of the mentally ill black man in the Charité University Clinic on Friday morning.

In a press release on Thursday evening, the Berlin victim counseling center Reachout accuses the police of using "massive brutal force" during the operation and of being responsible for the death; she also speaks of racism. The police are investigating the officers involved. The man's body is to be autopsied.

According to the police, the man was to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital on September 14 from a residential home for the mentally and mentally ill in Berlin-Spandau. A court ordered it. The man put up "massive resistance", he was handcuffed, finally he collapsed in the presence of an ambulance and his supervisor and was taken to a hospital.

Reachout wrote that police officers pinned the man to the ground and that a police officer put a knee on his neck. He bled. Finally he stopped breathing. CPR took more than 20 minutes. He later fell into a coma.