Cop punches woman in the face in Rotterdam – when is that okay? (video inside!)

Here’s a little bit of a dilemma. Equal treatment for all genders is something which most of us vehemently support. But should we also in this case?

A woman in Rotterdam, on the ‘stadhuisplein’ to be exact, gets pushed by a police officer and gets the treatment a man would probably get as well: a few swift punches to her face. But as you can see the bystanders (and yours truly as well) still feel it’s a bit of a different case to punch a woman straight in the face. So is the police officer right to handle it like this? Should nobody be punched like this? Should they be more gentle with women?

See for yourself:

No words

Geplaatst door Daily Active op vrijdag 1 juni 2018

Abuzer van Leeuwen 🇳🇱
Abuzer van Leeuwen 🇳🇱http://www.abuzervanleeuwen.nl
Abuzer founded DutchReview a decade ago because he thought expats needed it and wanted to make amends for the Dutch cuisine. He has a Masters in Political Science and IT but somewhere always wanted to study history or good old football. He also a mortgage in the Netherlands and will happily tell you too how to get one. Born and raised in Rotterdam, Abuzer now lives in Leiden but is always longing back to his own international year in Italy.

12 COMMENTS

  1. @DutchReview, I understand the tendency to go for framing into a lovely simple and clearcut Y / N situation. Unfortunately this doesn’t help in creating clarity, quite the opposite actually, it merely allows people to vent their feelings on this situation (as is so common nowadays)

    We all know and implicitly agree with the police being allowed to utilize (proportional) force when the situation demands it. So in that sense it could very well be that forceful intervention was the proper judgement for that situation.

    If the female officer had been the one to do so, it wouldn’t have been that newsworthy.

    Now that it is the male officer applying force we’re confronted with a societal / cultural norm being violated “as a man, one does not use physical force on a woman”, it’s firmly embedded in our culture as the civilized way to go.

    Given the current propensity of stereotypical expectations on which people are most likely to hit women you’d probably find a string bias towards “those others/newcomers” or whatever label is applied.

    Being confronted with a very Dutch person behaving in a manner which most would deem to be uncivilized or unadjusted it seems vital to me to clarify which value got violated and why we feel that that value is inherently important for our culture / identity.

    Much more useful than another sensationalist parade of opinions…..

    Of course all IMHO!! ?

  2. This is unjustified physical abuse regardless of the victim’s gender.
    The drunk woman should definitely not have tried to strike the cop, but the cop overreacted even if the drunk person was a man.
    Furthermore the cop then continues to attack the woman until others intervene.
    But then the cop takes out his baton/stick threatens the other people then pulls the woman away, then cracks her with his baton on her head (can hear the sickening crack in the video), by this time the woman has already calmed down and not attacking but the cop just hits her.

  3. She swung her hand towards his face…but he as a male AND a police officer, should know better than to lift a fist and punch a woman not once, but repeatedly. He completely lost his composure and sense of professionalism.

  4. To me it doesnt matter male or female. What does matter is strenght and power level and the fact that police arent out there to get in street fights. Fuck that cop. I wish it would have turned into a real fight and he got the beats he deserved.

  5. Well, we don’t know what this woman did before, since the video only recorder a small part of that conflict, and since we don’t know the background we can’t really judge anyone here

  6. Are there are actually idiots who think this is justifiable? Mike – Really. You have the power of the written word and yet you can’t work this out. I can’t believe it. If you don’t see this is wrong you are a muppet. Excessive force is a crime. This girl may have been abusive and drunk but you think she deserves this from the Police – the very people that are supposed to protect the peace. He needs to go to prison for a very long time. This video has simply highlighted to me an issue which I didn’t realised existed. I love Netherlands; have been to Rotterdam and Amsterdam many times. But your Police are vile; really you should be ashamed. Please tell me this idiot policeman is being taken to court? ? best, very angry from England

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