TATORT - Gegen den Kopf

38-year-old Mark Haessler is found dead on the subway platform at Schönlein Street in Berlin-Kreuzberg – apparently beaten to death by two fugitive juveniles he scuffled with on the train after they hassled a man with a walking disability. Haessler is reanimated but later dies at the hospital, leaving behind a wife and two children.

The two chief inspectors Till Ritter and Felix Stark try to reconstruct exactly what happened that night on the basis of various witness accounts and surveillance videos from traffic and security cameras. Public pressure is enormous – several people have already been attacked and injured on subway and commuter trains. And now someone has even been killed. The head of the Homicide Division stays in close contact with the inspectors. 

Then a Smartphone clip from that fateful night is secured. Two young men are easily recognizable as they snatch a cane away from an older man. Arrest warrants are issued. A short time later, one of the young men – Konstantin Auerbach – turns himself in. He comes with his lawyer Dr. Thomas and severely incriminates his friend Achim Wozniak who was previously convicted. Wozniak, on the other hand, claims that Auerbach was the driving force and that Haessler threw the first punch. The Media are particularly interested in the case and always well informed – too well informed and too soon, that’s Ritter’s impression. Is there possibly a leak from someone at the police department?

In the end, Mark Haessler’s badly damaged Smartphone is found in a park – he was sending a voicemail to his lover at the time of the offense. And the connection was not interrupted during the fatal assault.