Police officers feel unsafe because of the mild action against discrimination in their own ranks. Last month it was announced that the Rotterdam agents who showed themselves in a WhatsApp group racially alone were reprimanded in writing. For many police officers that mild punishment is incomprehensible, writes NRC.
Hundreds of agents responded to social media and the police intranet. They are supported by the Amsterdam police chief Frank Paauw. “The statements already rightly caused outrage and the punishment now also evokes emotion,” he wrote in an email on behalf of the unit leadership to all Amsterdam agents on Wednesday. According to Paauw, there are “quite a few colleagues and partners” who experience it as “painful” that no more emphatic action is taken against discrimination.
According to another top police official, there is “nationwide unrest” among officers over this matter. A team chief from the east of the Netherlands says that officers are annoyed by what they see as measuring with double standards.
According to NRC, experienced agents write on the intranet that they find the reprimand “shameful and disgusting”. One of them says he has heard racist remarks within the police for 26 years. “I still hope that we change as an organization.”
‘Good Servants’
Rotterdam police boss Fred Westerbeke says he is aware of the dissatisfaction with the sanctions he imposed on his officers. “There is a wide range of reactions to the decision, in that respect the police are no different from society.” He decided on the lightest sanction because the agents were “sorry” and “good cops”.
The racist reports came to light last year through reports from NRC. The newspaper wrote in July that agents in the WhatsApp group denounced citizens as “kutafrikans” and “pauperallochtonen”.
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