Mayor Aboutaleb of Rotterdam has reacted shocked to racist statements by police officers in a private WhatsApp group. What was shared in it “exceeded all boundaries in language and text,” he writes in a letter to the city council. The app group included nine officers from Marconiplein police station.
The case came out via NRC yesterday, after which the police announced an investigation. The newspaper faced screenshots of the conversations. Agents refer to citizens with a migrant background as “cancer people, cunt Africans and pauper immigrants” whom they want to “shoot at”.
The exchange of information is said to have taken place after officers saw a video of a white 15-year-old boy being beaten by black peers.
‘Corrective conversations’
Aboutaleb writes that the agents have ruined a safe working atmosphere and are damaging the confidence of other agents and of Rotterdammers. The mayor says he is aware that the police organization is part of society and that it includes racism and discrimination, adding that it is shocked at its seriousness.
The matter is not only being investigated by the police, but has also been brought before the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which will decide on any prosecution.
Aboutaleb says in an explanation to the NIS that the investigations should be awaited, adding: “If there is even a snippet of truth, there is no place for these people in my unit.”
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