Graffiti madness at the train station: escape through the park failed!

Graffiti madness at the train station: escape through the park failed!

On Sunday evening, August 24, 2025, a 20-year-old man was caught red-handed at Mittersendling train station in Munich while spraying graffiti on walls and billboards. According to a report by Blue light MYK The incident was observed by an attentive witness around 9 p.m. The 54-year-old from Munich saw the perpetrator spraying a wall of the staircase and then immediately informed the federal police.

The police patrols that arrived were able to quickly locate the sprayer. But the young man tried to escape via a nearby park. A service dog was used here to help locate him in the bushes. During the arrest, his backpack was seized, which contained several spray cans. A breath alcohol test showed a level of 1.0 per mille. The estimated material damage is around 800 euros.

An increase in graffiti crimes

This incident is embedded in a worrying development: the number of graffiti crimes has risen sharply in Munich. How Süddeutsche.de According to reports, last year the city took second place nationwide for such crimes on Deutsche Bahn facilities and vehicles. The number rose from 529 cases from January to October 2022 to 843 cases in 2023. In comparison, Berlin recorded the most crimes with 1,866 cases, followed by Frankfurt and Hamburg.

Deutsche Bahn itself faces severe financial challenges, as the annual damage caused by graffiti is consistently around 12 million euros. This high number results, among other things, from the complex cleaning processes, in which several specialists often need a whole working day to, for example, remove graffiti from a local railcar. In particularly serious cases, perpetrators face up to two years in prison.

A call for help

In order to counteract the increase in graffiti acts, the federal police are appealing to citizens to report their observations of vandalism as quickly as possible. In 2024, graffiti sprayers caused material damage of around 870,000 euros to Munich S-Bahn trains, which illustrates the full extent of this problem tz reported.

It is clear where all this can lead: in the end, not only the financial damage remains, but also the question of the sense of responsibility of those who commit such acts. After the incident in Mittersendling, the federal police began investigating property damage, and the perpetrator was released after being processed for identification purposes.