The police have arrested a second suspect for the deadly shooting at a tea house in Bergen op Zoom in October last year. It concerns a 24-year-old man from Schiedam. A 55-year-old man from Bergen op Zoom was killed in the shooting. The main suspect (22) turned himself in to the police station more than two weeks later and is still in custody.
The second suspect was arrested on Tuesday morning in a house in Schiedam. He is incarcerated and being interrogated.
Tea House Shooting
On Tuesday evening, October 12, 2021, shots were fired in at least two places in Bergen op Zoom. First around the corner at tea house De Theepot, on the corner of Wouwsestraatweg and Kastanjelaan.
Not long afterwards, about a mile away, shots were fired on Jan Dercksstraat. There were dozens of bullet casings on the road and a car was found with at least ten bullet holes.
The police scaled up that night. A police helicopter and an arrest team were deployed and an air ambulance was called in. The deceased man is said to have been hit in the head. People nearby heard three shots.
Shortly after the shooting, the arrest team raided the teahouse. Two suspects were arrested there. They were released the next morning because they had nothing to do with the shooting. A 29-year-old man from Bergen op Zoom was arrested at a different location, but he was also eventually released.
Neighborhood not happy with tea house
Residents of the Wouwsestraatweg and Kastanjelaan told Omroep Brabant the day after the shooting that they had had enough of De Theepot. They called it a drug house and said that visitors to the tea house have been a nuisance for years.
The Friday after the shooting, mayor Frank Petter of Bergen op Zoom decided that the teahouse had to be locked for a longer period of time. “The sense of safety of our residents and the quality of life in the neighborhoods is always our top priority,” Petter wrote in a press release. Initially it was going to be a month, but then it was extended to February 15. The municipality saw great risks with reopening.
It is still unclear what role the teahouse played in the shooting. The mayor only wanted to say that he was closing the building ‘on the basis of police information’ and because of the disturbance of public order.
Footage from just after the shooting on October 12: