It’s not hard to imagine them in police uniform, the big men entering the hotel room in casual clothes. They take a careful look at the room, some going to the window to check out the view. Call it professional deformity. But as soon as they start talking about their experiences within the force, little of that sturdy appearance remains. They are disillusioned, broken and humiliated by what one of them calls ‘the blue family’.
It doesn’t make them any less heroic; only a few dared to participate in the punch-in-the-stomach documentary the blue family (KRONCRV) that Meral Uslu and Maria Mok together with civil rights organization Control Alt Delete made about discrimination and racism in the police.
We hear an agent say that even participating in the research of the documentary is too risky. Another fears being fired: ‘I have a house, a mortgage, I have to take care of my family. I really don’t dare.’ Another: “I know what they’re capable of. I know how far they go with the police. You are simply dealt with as much as possible as a whistleblower and I just don’t dare to do that.’
The officers and police employees who are in the film paint a picture of an organization where exclusion, discriminatory comments and bullying occur systematically. ‘Bicultural and LGBTI officers walk down our doors because they don’t feel safe’, says Jan Struijs, chairman of the Dutch Police Association.
The exclusion already starts at the police school, says detective and motorcycle officer Bilal Addou. He was placed in a class that consisted mainly of people of color and that was soon referred to as ‘the immigrant class’. During his first year of police training, a photo of former inspector Peris Conrad was defaced with the text: ‘Imagine our monkey in a cage’.
Another striking pattern: sooner or later they all had to deal with false accusations from colleagues or a supervisor. Good networkers who fulfill a bridging function between the police and the street are distrusted for that very reason, says team chief and detective Margot Snijders. It reminds her of the discussion about double passports, which was started by Wilders. Are you loyal to our country, to our organization? Do you belong to us or do you belong to them?
‘Whoever talks, goes’, says association chairman Struijs. Where to? Either to another position, or out of the blue family. We have seen more examples of this in the media in recent years. But it makes the unadorned testimonials in the blue family no less shocking.
Agent Dwight van de Vijver says that it is with a heavy heart that he is going to hand in his police gear. Addou isn’t going anywhere for the time being: ‘I’m not finished. They may wish that. But I’m not worked out. Certainly not.’