Zurich unrest reignites debate over city police staffing
Monday 2nd November 2026 on 18:01 in
Switzerland
The violence in Zurich’s District 4 over Halloween has intensified debate over city police staffing, with the Swiss People’s Party calling for more officers and floating a takeover by the cantonal police, Swiss broadcaster SRF reported.
City security chief Karin Rykart of the Green Party has requested 17 additional frontline positions for the city police in the December budget debate. The SVP’s city parliamentary group leader, Stephan Iten, said that would be “a drop in the ocean” and that the force needed significantly more staff. The Liberal Democratic Party also supports the additional positions.
The SVP has also criticised the police response, saying officers intervened too late and not decisively enough. Rykart rejected the criticism, saying the unrest was severe and that enough officers had been deployed. She said the Halloween crowds, including bystanders and onlookers, made the situation particularly difficult to manage.
Rykart also pointed to the force’s workload. Many officers had already spent hours on duty at a football match before going directly to District 4, she said. She has requested additional police positions each year.
The Greens have not yet decided how they will vote on the new posts. In recent years, they backed only some of the requested positions, citing vacancies in the force. Green co-president Eticus Rozas said the party was still discussing its budget position and would take the recent events into account.
The Greens and Social Democrats both rejected the SVP’s idea of transferring the city police to the cantonal police. Rozas said security in the city differed from security at cantonal level. Social Democratic co-president Oliver Heimgartner said the SVP should first apologise for what he called “serious insults” by one of its members against the city police. He was referring to comments by cantonal parliamentarian Christoph Marty after unrest in mid-October, when Marty criticised the force, including its high proportion of women.
The December budget debate will show whether the unrest has shifted support for more city police positions.