With Chief Police Director Achim Stankowitz, a "man from the district" is now taking charge of the largest directorate of the Dortmund Police Department with around 1,300 police officers. Born in Dortmund, he still lives in our city and will now also be largely responsible for dealing with major police situations such as high-risk soccer operations and rallies.

Police Commissioner Gregor Lange emphasizes: "I am delighted to have gained an experienced head of operations for the Dortmund Police Department in Achim Stankowitz. What's more, he knows the police from the ground up. We have an experienced police officer here who can contribute his experience from various levels of the state administration to his work in Dortmund. I am particularly pleased that a committed Dortmund native will now be in charge of the largest directorate of Dortmund Police Department."

Dortmund - this word not only means "home" in a private sense for the married family man Achim Stankowitz. It is also like "coming home" for the 55-year-old in a professional sense. He has already worked in Dortmund as a senior civil servant. After his promotion to the higher service in 2004, he briefly took on the role of Head of the Motorway Police Command Centre at Dortmund Police Department from May 2007, but then moved to the then newly established State Office for Central Police Services (LZPD NRW) in the Rhineland.

He returned from there in 2009 and remained involved with the special units until the end of 2016, initially for several years in Dortmund and from 2013 in a managerial role in Düsseldorf. This was followed by another transfer to the LZPD NRW, this time to Duisburg, where he most recently took on a state-wide coordination and supervisory role as Head of Department for the core tasks of the NRW police "Operations" and "Traffic".

There, he was also involved in the fight against organized clan crime and, in particular, coordinated state-wide operations in this area. His department worked on several projects that dealt with the procurement of new equipment for police forces, such as bodycams, drones and the distance electro impulse device (DEIG).

Police officer Achim Stankowitz is looking forward to his new tasks: "I have an extremely motivated and committed team here and am very confident, especially with regard to the upcoming major operations in Dortmund. I will already be able to gain my first experience on December 7, 2021, during BVB's Champions League match against Besiktas Istanbul."

In terms of his priorities in Dortmund, the new Head of Directorate explains: "In my work, it is important to me to fight against all forms of extremism - and right-wing extremism in particular. I have seen that there has been significant progress in this area in Dortmund in recent years. I would like to build on this as the new head of the Directorate for Emergency Response/Employment.

I am also concerned about the issue of violence against police officers. Here, it is important to protect our officers and set them up in such a way that they can complete their duties as healthy and unharmed as possible."