Rotterdam police in two shooting incidents

Police in Rotterdam fired their weapons in two separate incidents in the port city on Thursday night, injuring one person, Nos tv reports on Friday.


In one case, a 52-year-old man in a ‘mentally-disturbed state’ was throwing furniture out of a window in the district of IJsselmonde. After efforts to control the man failed, he threatened the police, leading one officer to shoot him in the leg, Nos said.
In the second incident, one officer fired a warning shot after a car failed to stop at a control point and drove off.
An investigation is currently under way into the shooting of a 19-year-old youth at a dance party in Hoek van Holland near Rotterdam at the weekend.
Beach shooting

Souces say the youth was probably shot by police. Six people were also injured when a gang of around 80 youths began causing trouble at the free Sunset Grooves festival.
Officers involved in breaking up the fighting say in today’s AD that the crowd was after their blood.
‘It was as if we entered an arena filled with lions,’ one experienced officer told the paper. ‘Hundreds of people were chanting ‘there you have the cancer Jews’. Everyone was pushing at us, throwing sand in our eyes…. it was war, really war.’
The trouble reached a climax when five police officers had been isolated by a group of youths and the first warning shots were fired, the paper says.
‘Some of the group stormed towards us. Fences were being thrown at us. I thought ‘we are not going to make this’,’ another officer told the paper. ‘I was sweating from fear and I could smell it.’
Other officers claim the dead youth, Robby van der Leeden, was literally thrown at them. ‘We tried to help him, we took hold of his arms but we had to flee. We dragged him along for some 500 m,’ one officer told the AD.

Thank you for donating to DutchNews.nl.

We could not provide the Dutch News service, and keep it free of charge, without the generous support of our readers. Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter, and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day.

Make a donation