Father wanted Schiedam ax waver committed

The father of the 26-year-old Syrian man who was shot by the police after waving an ax on his Schiedam balcony last week Wednesday and passed away on Monday, asked "time and again" that his son be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, the family's lawyer Karen Kort said to NU.nl. The father contacted "multiple agencies" to find help for his son, the lawyer said.

According to the family, the man suffered from a mental illness that worsened in the weeks before his arrest. The mayor of Schiedam previously stated that the man was "somewhat familiar" to aid agencies, but not because of major problems.

Last week Wednesday the police responded to Van den Tempelstraat in Schiedam after reports of a man standing on a balcony, waving an ax and shouting "Allahu akbar". The police and a negotiator could not reason with the man. A SWAT team eventually broke into the home. The man attacked the officers and a police dog, who did not survive. The police finally shot the man. He died in hospital on Monday.

"The family is torn by grief", lawyer Kort said to the newspaper. In a statement the family said that the man had no terrorist sympathies. "He was healthy and a shy, peaceful and romantic boy."

The Rijksrecherche, the department that handles internal investigations at the police and other government services, is investigating the shooting. This is standard procedure whenever a police officer fires his or her gun.