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arrest by plainclothes officers/unmarked car?
what could have been going on? is this common in Germany? what sort of police unit would use totally undercover car/clothes with no backup to make a search?
This sounds like a zivilfahnder team from the Polizei Berlin. They operate in unmarked cars and plain clothes all the time, especially in the outer districts. The two person crew is actually standard for their surveillance and smaller takedowns, they don't roll out with a convoy unless it's a major operation.
The Edeka parking lot timing makes sense too. 3:30 PM is right when they'd wrap up following someone from a previous location and decide to make the move. The latex gloves are just procedure for protecting evidence, nothing shady about that.
If it was the LKA or a special unit like MEK, you'd have seen more cars and probably a few more officers in tactical gear. What you saw was a routine arrest, possibly for a warrant or something drug related.
police in berlin have been doing more of these low key operations lately, probably because they don't want to spook whoever they're after, or maybe they're just trying to keep things quiet in residential areas, fwiw i think it's a good thing they're not always rolling in with a bunch of sirens and stuff, it's less disruptive for everyone else, if you're ever wondering what's going on in your neighborhood you can always try contacting the local Burgeramt or Ortsteilbuergermeister to see if they have any info on recent police activity
that sounds like a bfe (besondere fuhrparkeinheit) or maybe landeskriminalamt team. they do plainclothes stuff like this all the time in berlin, especially for drug or stolen goods busts. the latex gloves are standard for evidence handling, not a red flag. the two-officer thing is unusual but happens if they were waiting for backup that never showed or if it was a quick surveillance takedown. honestly, the most unnerving part of berlin is how normal these arrests look in broad daylight on a residential street near an edeka.
