Brussels Riots: Were Police Ordered to Stand Down?

-by Kurt Zindulka, H/T Breitbart

On Sunday, Brussels experienced severe riots by Black Lives Matter protesters. There was looting, and police were pelted with rocks. Now one (anonymous) officer is claiming that the police were ordered not to take action for the first 90 minutes. The mayor, who is accused of giving the order, denies the charges. The below article from the Belgian daily La Libre, is translated by Fousesquawk.

https://www.lalibre.be/belgique/societe/un-policier-temoigne-nous-etions-caillasses-mais-nous-ne-pouvions-pas-charger-l-ordre-du-bourgmestre-ne-venait-pas-5ede3546d8ad585d08f2cfad

A police officer says,” We were hit with rocks, but the order from the mayor to charge didn’t come”. Close reacts,” That’s ridiculous, that’s defamation”

Jonas Legge

Published June 8, 2020 at 17:10-Updated June 8, 2020 at 18:54

The attack of the police, the pillage of businesses, and the breaking of public property this Sunday, at the end of the Black Lives Matter protest in Brussels, has raised indignation, anger, but also incomprehension.

How to explain that the police did not intervene earlier? “It’s simple, we didn’t receive the order. We had to wait 1 hour and 30 minutes!”, exclaims a police officer of the Brussels-Ixelles zone, who wants to remain anonymous.

“Before the demonstration, we had received the order to not effect controls. Then, when we were hit with rocks and we confirmed the material destruction, such as traffic lights and traffic signs, we could not act. However, there was already the means to intervene. In normal times, we would have charged, but the order did not come…. We remained in a defensive position: one leg in front and the baton in hand,” our source describes. “Then, they sent us to play hide-and seek: That is we received the order to proceed to a street, except the mayhem was happening a few blocks further away. The goal: To avoid confronting the demonstrators. I really don’t understand what was going on in the heads of our decision-makers at that moment because we could have easily arrested the rioters.”

The decision-makers that our contact evokes, who are they? “The mayor of Brussels,” lets loose the police officer. “It is he who gave the instructions this Sunday, it’s he who supervised the operation from the crisis center  with the area chief. Today, he says he reacted in time. But on the ground, we had to wait 1 hour and 30 minutes after the first incidents to finally intervene. We felt abandoned. We were obliged  to let it go when we were hit with every object that was in the hands of the ‘people destroying things’. Today, several colleagues (police) are injured due to the paving stones they were hit with.”

Our source indicates that, like her colleagues, she expected the protest to end in mayhem. She considers, nevertheless that there were enough police on the ground. “It’s just that the manner in which we were utilized is incomprehensible. Morally, it is hard to go through.”

Finally, this police officer deplores the fact that the residents and merchants of the quarter were, also themselves, neglected. “Imagine: They call the police and more than an hour later, the police are still not there. They don’t understand this absence of reaction, this abandonment.”

Strike notice

The police union, SLFP has filed a notice of strike for the police zone Brussels Capital-Ixelles, which was deployed to  cover the protest which (involved) about 10,000 people. “We stated that the risk analysis for Sunday did not hold water. The tolerance thresholds as to violence against the police were sufficiently determined,” reacted Vincent Houssin, president of the union.

“Yesterday, 28 cops were injured. We turn here to the administrative authorities, who hold an important responsibility and should assume the responsibility of the application of the law,” he adds. According to the union, the protest should never have been held.

Close: “I formally refute”

Contacted by us, Philippe Close, the mayor of Brussels, assures that this absence of order is “false”. “I formally refute this. From the incidents a Porte de Naur, we gave instructions to directly charge. I am ready to confront the points of view with anyone. We are not under a dictatorship, I can understand the critics. But I strongly dislike this process of testifying anonymously.”
The socialist adds that he was at the side of the corps commander from 3 to 9 pm, and that he therefore followed everything that occurred, in making the timely decisions. “How can you imagine that I prefer that windows be broken and police injured? That’s ridiculous, it is defamation.”