Thursday Night in the Hague: Police Shoot Man with Hatchet

Hat tip Vlad Tepes

On Thursday evening in the Scheveningen district of the Hague, Dutch police had to shoot a young man on the street who was screaming and waving an ax in the air. The suspect had reportedly attacked and wounded a cyclist with the ax. When the man refused to drop the weapon, he was shot and taken to the hospital.  The below Dutch article, first posted by Vlad Tepes, is translated by Fousesquawk. The article contains a video of the shooting.

https://www.ad.nl/den-haag/politie-schiet-man-met-hakbijl-neer-in-scheveningen~a20cdfe0/

Police shoot man with hatchet in Scheveningen

On Thursday evening, police officers shot a man with a hatchet on Neptunusstraat (Street) in the Hague. The man wounded at least one person and caused damage in the street. “He struck a passing cyclist,” says a resident who saw it all happen.

-Thomas de Waard and Rianne de Zeeuw, 28 May 2020. Latest update: 23:01

Apparently, the agents were required to use their weapons to stop the man. The man possibly  wounded two people randomly on the street, but the Public Prosecutor cannot yet say.

The Public Prosecutor confirms that he was shot by a police officer. “The National (investigative) police are conducting an investigation into the reason for the shooting. At this moment more is not clear,” reports a spokesperson. Public statements lie with the Public Prosecutor and not the police. That is common when a police officer has used his/her weapon.

A man has been taken urgently to the hospital. According to CalamitysiteRegio15, that is the suspect who was shot.

Eyewitnesses

The incident took place around 19:00 and was seen by several residents. ” I was coming back from my walk on the beach when I heard someone screaming,” said a local resident, who did not want her name in the newspapers. Actually, I wasn’t surprised because you regularly hear crazy things being screamed nowadays. An older man was cycling by, and the young man began striking the back of the cyclist with a big hatchet out of nowhere. The man shouted, ‘Stop, Sir, stop, Sir!’ Then I ran away quickly because he only one step and he would have caught me. Then a young lad called the police.”

The man with the hatchet  also reportedly harassed a couple who were eating fries farther on in a coffee shop. Earlier the man had destroyed a window. According to witnesses, the perpetrator lives on that street. The local resident says the man panicked when officers approached him. “First, there were warning shots,” says another anonymous woman resident. “Then they apparently shot him because he was taken to the hospital.”

Video

A video of the arrest is going around social media. After the incident the intersection of Neptunusstraat and Rotterdamsestraat was blocked off with ribbons (police tape). National police investigators have been busy for hours with the investigation. “It is normally always a quiet neighborhood,” says a local resident. ” Hardly anything ever happens here.”
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We will try to update the details on this incident.