Rotterdam mayor: Police must also frisk grannies in searches

According to Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, everyone should be searched during preventive frisk-actions, including grannies. The mayor said this on Saturday in response to the anger that arose over an elderly woman being searched in the city in May, RTV Rijnmond reports. The search happened during police raid at cafe Gastronoom at the Zuidplein bus station. The police searched everyone, including an 80 year old woman. This sparked outrage with some parties in the city council. Leefbaar Rotterdam suggested that searches should be done selectively, excluding elderly people and children. GroenLinks believes that the preventive search actions are no longer necessary and should be scrapped completely. Aboutaleb is completely against selective searches. "Selective searches could lead to racism and strange situations", the mayor said, pointing to a situation where a weapon was found in a stroller. "That weapon was in the bed of a pram with the baby in there too", Aboutaleb said. "If old grannies are no longer searched, they will soon be used to transport drugs. We can't have that." The Rotterdam mayor wants to have a debate with the city council on the preventative searches, but reiterated that the police will definitely not search people selectively.