The New Year was a turbulent one in and around the Huizer shopping center de Kostmand. A group of thirty to forty young people threw stones and heavy fireworks at the police and committed vandalism. It even went so far that the Mobile Unit (ME) had to be deployed.
The municipality of Huizen reported this this afternoon.
During New Year’s Eve, the police received a report about people wearing balaclavas who were causing a nuisance at the Kostmand shopping center, the police said. Fuel bottles and heavy fireworks were allegedly thrown in the shopping center.
When they arrived at Gemeenlandslaan, the police were pelted with stones and fireworks in their car. The police car was damaged, but the officers were unharmed. The riot police eventually had to be deployed to restore order. According to the municipality of Huizen, 15 to 20 young people have been searched and identified.
No arrests have been made, but the police are still investigating and looking for eyewitnesses and camera images.
Heavy damage
The municipality of Huizen reports that the unrest started when a fuel bomb was thrown into a park on Plein2000. After that, the nuisance would have moved towards the Kostmand.
In the shopping center, a shop window and a porch of the apartment building on Kostmand, among others, were heavily damaged by fireworks. The exact damage is not yet clear. In other places in Huizen, the New Year passed quietly, according to the municipality.
“The problems surrounding the Kostmand are not new to us, but the scale on which this manifested itself has surprised us,” Mayor Niek Meijer said. “We tried to connect with young people and young adults in advance. We did this in collaboration with local entrepreneurs with the aim of working together to achieve a peaceful New Year’s Eve. That was not successful and I deeply regret that. There is a small group who deliberately wants to spoil the atmosphere for people who want to do well and I’m quite disappointed about that.”