Eighteen-year-old twins Timo and Mart van Ginkel from Emmerhout share a lot: appearance, friends, interests. But they would have liked not to have one experience in common. Both were victims of a violent attack at almost the same place in Emmen.
Just a fun night out. That was the idea, Timo says. Two weeks ago, on Saturday November 8, Timo and a friend of his were at a handball match in the Angelslo sports hall. The idea is to cycle to Klazienaveen with their friends afterwards and spend the night there. “So me and that friend of mine, we’re both going to pick up a bag at home.” The agreement is to wait for each other at the dark cycle path that separates the Emmerhout and Angelslo districts.
Timo and his girlfriend arrive first, a few hundred meters from Timo’s house. “A fat bike then drove past with two young men on it. Black clothing. They were both wearing such a balaclava, so you only see their eyes.” The duo cycles past and Timo thinks nothing of it.
When the other two also report, the ladies go first and Timo and his buddy paddle behind. But a few hundred meters further the same boys suddenly jump out from behind a parked car.
Timo is grabbed by the collar. “What are you carrying?” I heard someone say. I noticed that they had been drinking. I reflexively grabbed the person who grabbed me and shouted: ‘Let me go, man!’ Then the other person tapped me on the back of the head. With a fist. Which made me fall to the ground.”
Fortunately, it does not lead to more violence. The two quickly run away. Timo stands back on his feet, shaking. “I really thought: they are going to beat me up. But they suddenly disappeared. I still had everything, luckily. Just a sore spot on the back of my head.”
His friends initially did not understand what was happening and were unable to intervene so quickly. Timo: “It happened in a flash. It was viewed in less than two minutes.”
Timo is not the first in the Van Ginkel family to experience this. Almost a year and a half earlier, on Good Friday, twin brother Mart was assaulted less than a hundred meters from home while taking a walk with Timo and friends.
“A boy came up on a bicycle and swayed a bit. A friend of mine said, ‘Aren’t you having too much?’ Well, then he immediately started cursing,” says Mart. A little later a group of boys in black clothing shows up.
“They were holding a friend of mine, Jorick Wubbels. I walked over and asked: ‘What’s going on?’ I was immediately punched in the nose and found myself lying on the ground. I can’t really remember if I was away for a short while. Then I ran away in panic.”
Jorick is less lucky: he is hit and kicked. Jorick: “Before I knew anything, I was grabbed. There were three or four of them standing around me. I received one blow after another.” He is kicked in the upper body and in the groin. In addition to scratches and bruises, he also suffers from pain in his ribs and lower body. Like Mart, he also suffers a minor injury to his nose.
Just like Jorick, both Timo and Mart have filed a report. But to everyone’s frustration, nothing further comes of this. Father Andy: “I got the feeling that it wasn’t all that important. Reporting it? Difficult, difficult.”
A doctor’s report is added, but six months later the announcement is made that nothing further will be done with Mart’s case due to insufficient evidence. Jorick is told something similar: “That probably hurts the most. Completely beat up and in the end nothing happens.”
According to Mart, the perpetrator group is approximately his own age. “But it was pitch black, there are no lampposts. You can hardly see anything.”
And now, after the attack on Timo, history seems to be repeating itself, both parents fear. He can file a report by telephone on December 5. “Almost a month later.”
The family has lived in Emmerhout since 1999 and in recent years something has struck them. “Many more young people on the street in the evening,” says mother Nathalie. “And then I wonder: what are you doing here? Aren’t your parents worried?” There are always groups that just hang around and pick fights, according to the family.
Andy sees the same thing. “The whole area here was recently full of empty laughing gas bottles. There are cars here and there and there they are with those laughing balloons.” In their experience, the neighborhood has changed a lot in that respect.
Timo and Mart say that they also have friends and acquaintances who can share their experience. For example, they are familiar with Dylan, who was violently attacked earlier this year after the Golden Arrow (‘We worked with him in the Jumbo’).
In September, a group of young people were brutally treated in the Hoofdstraat of Emmen. Timo: “We had a drink with one of those boys during that handball evening.” They can all talk about it, says Nathalie. “It happens more often than people think,” she says. “And that worries me.”
For Timo, the blow came later. “It didn’t really bother me psychologically, but I did have re-experiences,” he says. “The first three or four nights I hardly slept. Or I woke up with a headache and nausea.”
Twin brother Mart recognizes that tension. He also often thinks back to it, more than a year after his own abuse. “Going out alone in the dark? That doesn’t feel safe to me,” he says. Timo: “I’d rather not go out on the street at night anyway. When the lampposts come on, I’d rather just be at home.”
For Jorick too, the blow goes further than just the bruises. “I was on my guard for weeks. If I saw someone walking in the dark at night, I didn’t feel at ease. It’s that someone just decides that you are the one to blame.”