The police did not act decisively enough to protect demonstrators at Kick Out Zwarte Piet in Staphorst. Police should have intervened at the demonstration in November 2022 and better protected protesters and Amnesty International observers when they were attacked. There was too much confidence that the demonstration would go according to plan and the risks were misjudged. This is the conclusion of the Justice and Security Inspectorate in a report published on Thursday.
Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) had announced in advance that it would come to Staphorst. Several Amnesty observers accompanied us. A group of young Staphorsts wearing black face pelted the activists on an exit of the A28 highway. They damaged cars, the police did not stop the violence and the municipality banned the demonstration. Afterwards the police received a lot of criticism. For example, parliamentary questions were asked.
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Earlier this year, the RadarAdvies agency, which conducted research on behalf of Staphorst, concluded that the risk of violence was underestimated. Officials had such great confidence in their own residents that they did not take KOZP’s concerns sufficiently seriously. “Wishful thinking” crept into the preparation of the entry, according to RadarAdvies.
The Inspectorate analyzed documents and video material and conducted interviews, including with key police employees. The investigation focused on the actions of the police in the run-up to the demonstration and after the mayor’s ban on demonstrations.
According to the Inspectorate, it became clear during the preparation that the safety of the demonstrators could be endangered. Signals were received that blockades might be set up to keep KOZP out of Staphorst. But the preparation did not specifically discuss how action would be taken against this. The police, the researchers say, accepted the counteractions of the residents of Staphorst and tried to work around them instead of taking action against them.
No route maps
According to the researchers, a key moment is when vehicles of several demonstrators, who had gathered at the Zwolle police station, leave the column. This is partly because the police did not hand out route maps to the demonstrators, as previously planned. The police also do not accompany the demonstrators with recognizable cars, so they can quickly get through everything.
As a result, two demonstrators’ cars and an Amnesty car accidentally enter the A28. The vehicles are pelted with eggs, shaken back and forth, smeared with oil and manure and destroyed. It then takes too long for a riot police bus to arrive on the scene. In addition, the police on the exit were understaffed.
When the column of demonstrators stops at a gas station in Meppel at the request of the police, their presence at that location is quickly discovered. Rioters go there with tractors. The police inform KOZP that the rioters are on their way, but do not protect them and drive away. A police officer shouts through a megaphone: “You have to leave, if you don’t, the risks are your own.” The KOZP bus is stuck and rioters walk towards it, the police are eighty meters away and do not intervene. Protesters eventually manage to get away on their own.
‘Totally underestimated’
In the future, the Inspectorate believes it is advisable to describe risks in concrete terms and map out their consequences for police action. The police must also act more flexibly in unexpected situations. Protesters must be more explicitly protected and the police must communicate more clearly with demonstrators.
The Inspectorate further concludes that the number of demonstrations in the Netherlands is increasing, and that demonstrators are increasingly diametrically opposed to each other. Demonstrations demand a lot from the police organization, which is therefore reaching its own limits.
But, says Peter Neuteboom, chief inspector at the Justice and Security Inspectorate, with the number of officers involved in the demonstration in Staphorst – between 200 and 250 – the police should have simply done their job better. “They should have thought more carefully, they completely underestimated the risks. This could and should have been prevented.” According to him, the police leadership has learned from the events. Neuteboom further says that the Inspectorate will monitor the actions of the police during demonstrations in the coming years.
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