An “aloha” tattoo? German police officer went to court for this (we have some ideas…)

After years of litigation, a police officer in the southern German state of Bavaria can now get a tattoo with the words “Aloha”. The Interior Ministry in Munich announced on Friday that the tattoo had been approved for “specific individual cases”.

The condition is that the man covers the tattoo on duty so that it cannot be seen. In 2013, the police officer unsuccessfully applied for a permit for the tattoo at the Central Franconia police headquarters, after which several courts dealt with the matter. “Of course I’m happy,” he told the news magazine “Spiegel” after the approval. However, his goal was to wear the tattoo openly.

In the 2020 Federal Administrative Court proceedings in Leipzig, he explained that the planned tattoo on his forearm should remind him of his honeymoon in Hawaii. “I just like that.” He’s not a bad cop just because he’s tattooed. At the time, the Federal Administrative Court ruled that the tattoo was not compatible with Bavarian civil service law. Most recently, however, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in mid-2022 that the case should be re-examined.

How the Bavarian police will generally deal with tattoos on officers in the future has not yet been settled. The regulations are currently being “updated”, according to the ministry: “As this process has not yet been completed, we cannot provide any further information on this.” (sda/dpa)