Around 150 people joined a funeral procession on Wednesday for a man who died while being detained by police who stopped him while searching for a stolen fatbike.
The body of 51-year-old Alfredo Goeloe was carried in a white coffin in a carriage drawn by two white horses to the Zuiderbegraafplaats in Rotterdam, 10 days after he collapsed while being pinned to the ground and handcuffed.
Friends and relatives who followed the coffin carried banners with slogans including “samen tegen onrecht omdat we om elkaar geven” (united against injustice because we care for each other).
One of the mourners, Yenci Vargas, told Nieuwsuur: “He was murdered. I’m not talking about racism, but he was murdered by the negligence and stupidity of the police.”
Another, Marsha Mabosa, said: “Last month we were out in a café and he asked me to dance the bachata. He was a very good dancer. And now we have to miss him in a way that is very unjust.”
Stolen fatbike
Goeloe was stopped by police while riding a fatbike through Rotterdam on the evening of Saturday, September 12.
Police initially said he was suspected of stealing the bike, but later changed their story to say he had been stopped because he was riding too fast. Just before Goeloe’s arrest a fatbike had been reported stolen by a couple aged around 40.
Goeloe tried to run from police when they tried to arrest him for not carrying ID. His family said he had borrowed his sister’s bike to go out to get medication for his diabetes.
He was chased down and passed out while he was being restrained on his belly. Video footage showed he cried out that he had diabetes and was in pain as he lay on the ground.
Official complaint
Goeloe’s family have filed a criminal complaint against four police officers. Lawyer Gerard Roethof said they viewed it as “a case of manslaughter, or in any event severe assault with fatal consequences.”
Jan Schalkwijk, a lawyer with Control Alt Delete, an organisation that monitors racial profiling in the Netherlands, said the use of force by police was excessive.
“The officers were far superior in number, according to reports he was unarmed, and he could have been approached with less force,” Schalkwijk argued.
Restraint guidelines
But Jaap Timmer, a political scientist at the VU university in Amsterdam who specialises in police use of force, said there was no indication from the film footage that the police had failed to follow protocol.
He said police guidelines said people should be pressed against the ground for as short a time as possible when under arrest, but it was unsafe to let them stand up before they had been handcuffed.
“I understand the police were looking for a fatbike and this man was riding too fast. That could be a reason to ask his identity,” he said.
“He then ran away fast and resisted his arrest. That has nothing to do with ethnic profiling, but with the man’s behaviour.”
