After 45 years in the IJmond, the last 10 of which as a local police officer in Uitgeest, police officer Frans Pals is retiring. Wednesday is his last working day. “I sometimes thought: am I that loud? I talk about myself quite a lot, maybe that will help.”
“Hey Frans, how good is your hair today, put a nice gel in it!?” An 8- or 9-year-old student from the Binnenmeer, for example, greeted the (bald) 65-year-old local police officer from Uitgeest on a bicycle. He says it beamingly: “Not Mr. Pals, or officer, no: just French.”
“I will miss that the most. The people, the contact”, he says, leaning in his chair on the ‘support point’ of the police, an office behind the green heavy side door next to the main entrance of the town hall of Uitgeest.
After 45 years of service with the police, of which the last 10 in Uitgeest, next King’s Day is Frans’ last day. “I’m always very good at putting things into perspective, but I’ll hold my breath for Wednesday. Do you think I’ll burst into tears?”
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After his departure, Uitgeest keeps two police officers. Dennie Bronneberg, who went viral on his appointment because of his looks, takes over Frans’ quarter north of the railway. And a new local police officer takes over Bronneberg’s current district, south of the railway with the Kleis and the Waldijk.
The near-retirement is satisfied with how he leaves the village behind: “People here are very friendly and crime is fairly low. The youth do smoke quite a lot, that’s a thing, but hard drugs are hardly used. Or we don’t see it of course. “
He visits the youth himself and often speaks with them, he says. “When I drive past the hangouts, Zienhouse, the Ice Rink or the lake, and I see the young people standing, I always talk to them. The best compliment I’ve had lately was that those young people said: ‘why? are you leaving, can’t you stick to it for a year?'”
“Don’t worry, I’m a stray cat”
Frans calls himself an IJmonder. He was born in Heemskerk, also lived there and was an agent for a while. He now lives in Beverwijk and he started his career in Velsen in 1976. “But Uitgeest is the pearl of the region, I always say.”
He could be found on the street and in the neighborhood for his entire police life. “I once applied for a higher position. I was also suitable, they said, but another was even better. Then I thought: I will never apply again. On the street I could and can just be myself. I’m a stray cat.”
Beautiful women and burglars
Because on the street there are the people and the action. Frans: “Once in Velsen, a colleague and I stopped a beautiful woman in her car, I remember it well. We talk with her, make jokes, etc., and she was allowed to drive on again.”
“Immediately after, we received a report of a burglar at a school. We were close by, raced towards it, and caught him in the act, climbing out the window with a large TV in his hands. We charge him and walk off the school grounds. And Coincidentally, that beautiful woman was standing there again and she said: ‘Nice to see that you are not only good at seducing women, but also good at catching crooks’, beautiful isn’t it!?”
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ME’er who could see too little of the game
In addition to being a community police officer, Frans was also an riot police officer ‘years ago’, between 1978 and 1993. “I was at the front of the squatters’ riots. The protection of the suit was not nearly as good then as it is now, so that was something. The stones flew around your ears.”
He had finished the extra task in 1993, but not because the task was too violent, or too intensive, or too time-consuming. The main reason for stopping was different:
“At a certain point, I was mainly used for football matches. It was great fun, I’m quite crazy about football. But I was always working outside the stadium, so I didn’t get anything from the matches. That was not fun, then I stopped .”
Still, almost half a century as a police officer can’t go by without a rough moment here and there. “I have also seen a lot of rottenness, because yes, as an agent you are often the first on the scene.”
And that did not leave Frans completely untouched. As the years progressed, he has certainly found it increasingly difficult to have conversations with relatives. “I think that has to do with getting older,” is his simple explanation.
Yet he never really had to seek help, he says. “Yes, a beer in the pub, to let a bad day slide off me, but no more than that. I sometimes thought: am I that loud? I talk about myself quite a lot, maybe that will help.” Laughing again: “The series of farewell interviews may well be a kind of therapy for me.”
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Italian murder suspect in IJmuiden
“Afterwards we received a lot of praise from the commissioner”, Frans beams after. “It was the time of the RAF, Red Army Faction, a terrorist group that had carried out attacks abroad. We saw a car with German registration and three men in it. We stopped them to check.”
After the identity check of the three, “the button had to be turned on”, he says. Because as it turned out: one of the men was suspected of the murder of a cashier during a robbery in France.
“Another still had a few fines outstanding. Then we pretended that he had to come and pay them at the station. We asked the men if they wanted to drive behind us to the station. They did. Within five seconds of entering the desk they were on the floor with a couple of police officers on top of them.”
A lot has changed in his time with the police, he says. For the better, “we have neat uniforms, the cars are Mercedes, nice laptop”, sometimes he on, but also for the worse. “After the centralization in 2013, contact between the police and citizens has decreased,” says Frans.
Responding to an investigation by the NOS with regional broadcasters, the police acknowledged earlier this year that there is a shortage of police officers as a result of that centralization and another reorganization shortly after. The police also say they expect that the occupation of the force from a ‘low point’ of 2022, will grow back to normal occupancy in 2025.
If the TomToms fail…
And the optimized technology at the police also has a disadvantage, “Just write that down”, the veteran encourages: “If the TomToms go down, there will be almost no police officer who just knows the street names.”
He remembers it himself: “We used to play hide-and-seek during a quiet night shift. That sounds crazy, but you were just in the neighborhood and you got to know all the nooks and crannies. From Santpoort to Uitgeest, I can see the streets blindly. draw.”
Then he walks outside. He immediately greets two people who pass by. “I’m just going to do my round by bike, the weather is beautiful. Where am I going? The weekend is about to start, so I’ll stop by the catering entrepreneurs, the industrial estate and then along the lake, I think.”
The realization that this is the last week is really starting to rear its head. “But I’m satisfied. And I don’t know exactly what it is, but if my goodbye gets so much attention, I must have done something right.”
Need a new gun
“‘You never dare, Frans'”, my colleague said to me. “It was a boring shift, and we had a fire hose in our hand. That’s where the boss of the riot police came around the corner. Well, I really dared. Then I just blown the cap off his face. It took for a moment, but later he could laugh about it.”
“Another time I had tricked some colleagues. They wanted to get back at me and although I was quite fast and managed to stay out of their hands for a long time, they had handcuffed me at one point. I got all kinds of things then. me one, bags of sand, water. Only they forgot to take off my gun… it was corroded, I had to get a new one.”