HUNDREDS of people ran riot in Germany’s Stuttgart city centre in the early hours of today, throwing stones and bottles at police and plundering stores after smashing shop windows.

“Police are currently securing leads and are interrogating more than 20 people who have been provisionally arrested,” said authorities from the southwestern city in a statement.

More than a dozen police officers were also hurt in the clashes, added the statement.

Sascha Binder, a leading local MP of the Social Democratic Party, sharply condemned the violence.

“It is absolutely unacceptable, that in the middle of our country civil war-like scenes are breaking out. We don’t know street battles of such scales in Baden-Wuerttemberg.”

Tensions built up shortly after midnight over police checks on drug consumption by some people who had gathered close to the city’s biggest square, the Schlossplatz.

Clashes then broke out, as the groups went on a rampage, using sticks or poles to smash windows of police vehicles parked in the area. 

Police estimated that around 500 people were involved in the riot, which also left shops along the neighbouring Koenigstrasse, a key shopping thoroughfare, attacked and looted.

Police called in reinforcements, and were only able to quell the violence several hours later.

Videos posted on Twitter showed people breaking shop windows, with their goods strewn on the streets. 

A jewellery store was completely emptied and a mobile phone shop wrecked, according to regional broadcaster SWR.

Smaller scale clashes had broken out downtown last week between police and groups of young people. – AFP, June 21, 2020.