Authorities say a police officer who was arrested over his involvement in an off-duty “violent incident” has been suspended. “Drugs were found during the investigation,” police note, and the criminal case is ongoing.
“In addition to the criminal investigation, a disciplinary investigation has also been started,” authorities confirm. “The employee has since been suspended, but he has no access to police buildings and systems during the investigations.”
The number of sex crimes the police registered last year decreased by 13 percent compared to 2018, according to an analysis of crime statistics released on Wednesday. The main categories of violent crime combined to show only a slight overall increase in 2019 when compared to the year before, even as there were large increases in categories like forced labor, muggings, and threats of violence.
The Public Prosecution Service in Amsterdam is concerned about young people seemingly being increasingly eager to shoot or stab each other. "My concern is great, because you see that the number of incidents involving young people who shoot or stab is increasing," chief prosecutor John Lucas said in an interview with AT5. Amsterdam police chief Frank Paauw expressed similar concerns earlier this year.
Violence and aggression are commonplace within the walls of the psychiatric prison institutions in the Netherlands. A serious incident occurs in one of the 13 such institutions more than once a week, the Telegraaf reports based on figures requested from the Ministry of Justice and Security.
The Ministry only provided the Telegraaf with figures on incidents of violence among patients themselves and of incidents of violence by patients directed at staff resulting in serious injury. Since the start of 2017, there has been 169 such incidents, according to the newspaper.
The Amsterdam city council will launch a campaign against the possession of weapons in the city by the end of this year. The campaign 'Amsterdam disarmed' will start in Zuidoost, and then be extended to other parts of the city, the city council announced during a meeting in Zuidoost on Thursday, Het Parool reports.
An increasing number of young people in Amsterdam carry a knife with them, make threatening videos with it, and actually use it on the street, and that is very concerning, Amsterdam police chief Frank Paauw said to AT5.
"You can see it is getting out of hand", Paauw said to the Amsterdam broadcaster "Sometimes you see young people under 15 who are already walking around with a knife. The possession of weapons the carrying of knives, is becoming commonplace."
While not all the violent incidents in Amsterdam Zuidoost over the past weeks can be linked, there is a common thread, Amsterdam police chief Frank Paauw and mayor Femke Halsema said in a city council debate on Thursday. More than conventional measures will be needed to tackle the violence in the district, Halsema said, Het Parool reports.
A large number of GP posts say that patients are becoming increasingly aggressive towards their doctors. Some 60 percent of the directors of these house doctor posts say that they receive telephone threats every week and that patients are more likely to threaten violence than five years ago. Almost a third of GP posts deal with physical violence at least once a year, newspaper Trouw reports based on its own research.
A third of all municipal councilors in Gelderland have been threatened or faced with violence, according to a survey among nearly 400 councilors from all 51 Gelderland municipalities by Omroep Gelderland. That puts the percentage of threatened councilors higher than the 29 percent national average.
The student campuses in Amsterdam are not safe, student union ASVA warns. The union received 39 reports of incidents over the last two months alone, mainly involving incidents of violence, sexual offenses, robbery and burglary, AD reports.
A large part of these reports came from the Spinoza Campus and the nearby apartment buildings Echtenstein and Bergwijkdreef in Amsterdam Zuidoost. Students also feel unsafe at the campus on the NDSM wharf, according to ASVA.
The Amsterdam mayor, police and Public Prosecutor launched a task force to investigate the increased incidents of hand grenades and other explosives used to intimidate business owners. The task force's goal will be to find out whether the municipality can take measures to prevent such incidents, the city said in a press release.
The Dutch authorities launched a Safe Press project on Monday with the goal to better protect journalists and help ensure that they can do their jobs safely. The project includes the police and Public Prosecutor giving high priority to finding perpetrators of violence or aggression against journalists, harsher punishment demands for these crimes, and a hotline where journalists can report incidents, the police said in a statement.
Around 62 percent of doctors' assistants were faced with violence over the past two years, the Dutch association for doctors' assistants NVDA reports based on a survey among nearly a thousand members. Incidents included spitting, hitting, kicking, vandalism and even threats with an ax, knife or firearm, ANP reports.
Over a quarter of assistants reported experiencing such incidents more than four times per year. In some cases, the police had to be called in. 44 percent indicate that the violence is increasing.
Union FNV received 60 reports in two weeks' time about unsafe working conditions at asylum centers across the Netherlands. Most of the reports concerned daily violent incidents, both among the residents and towards the staff of the asylum centers. The union is shocked and calls for immediate intervention, ANP reports.
Mayor Wobine Buijs of Oss declared part of the Schadewijk neighborhood as a "security risk area", following a series of incidents. This means that the police can stop people and search them and their bags and cars as a precautionary measure, Omroep Brabant reports.
The police are investigating the death of Bianca van Es. The 29-year-old woman was found dead in her home on Luntershoek in Rotterdam under suspicious circumstances on Friday morning. An autopsy found traces of violence on the young woman's body, but her cause of death is still a mystery, the police said in a statement.
A team of 20 detectives is working on the investigation. Police officers spoke to a number of local residents and witnesses, forensic experts investigated the victim's home, and detectives are currently viewing available camera footage.
Right-wing extremists in the Netherlands are increasingly vocal about encouraging and glorifying violence against Muslims and the government in particular, intelligence service AIVD said in a new publication. While this group seldom resorts to physical violence, the AIVD is concerned about the climate arising in the Netherlands, NU.nl reports.
The vast majority of people who work in the Netherlands' sex industry face some form of violence, mostly from customers, according to a study by Aidsfonds, Soa Aids Nederland and sex workers' interest group Proud, Het Parool reports.
An increasing number of people who use public transit in the Netherlands are faced with violence like threats, assault, intimidation or robbery, according to a survey by CROW among 87 thousand public transit passengers, the Telegraaf reports.
In 2017 the number of such incidents on public transport increased slightly for the first time in five years. Last year 15.5 percent of passengers reported facing violence or aggression, compared to 13.5 percent in 2016. CROW could not give a definite explanation for the increase.
Three people were arrested in the asylum center in Weert on Monday evening on suspicion of violence and vandalism. Initial reports stated that a man was threatening others with a firearm, but the police emphasize that this was not the case, the Telegraaf reports.
Sources told regional newspaper 1Limburg that tensions were high in the asylum center all day and that a man with a firearm threatened to shoot people. According to the police, this is not what happened and there was no question of a hostage situation.
The number of people suspected of violence against people with a public duty, like police officers, firefighters and paramedics, increased by nearly 20 percent last year. In 2017 a total of 8,964 people were suspected of verbally or physically attacking an emergency worker, compared to 7,502 the year before, NOS reports.
Ruling party ChristenUnie wants violence with a religious or racist motive to be punished more harshly, as is already the case for violence against public officials. "If you fulfill a public function in the public domain and are attacked, we believe you need extra protection. That must also apply here", said Gert-Jan Segers, leader of the Christian party, NOS reports.
The Public Prosecutor launched an investigation into Dutch soldier Marco Kroon using violence during a secret operation in Afghanistan in 2007, Kroon's lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops announced on Wednesday. Kroon was awarded the Militaire Willems-Orde, the highest military award in the Netherlands, in 2009 for his efforts in Afghanistan, newspaper AD reports.
Kroon says he reported the incident to Defense last year. Defense gave it through to the Public Prosecutor last week, which now launched an investigation.
The anti- Zarte Piet protestors arrested in November 2016 during the national arrival of Sinterklaas in Maasluis will not be prosecuted.
168 people have received the news through a letter from the Public Prosecutor this week. Their cases have been dismissed due to insufficient evidence and because they have been unjustly regarded as suspects, according to NOS
