Dossier: deaths in police custody

Controle Alt Delete monitors how many deaths occur during or following contact with law enforcement. This includes deaths during arrests, transport and custody. It does not necessarily follow that all of these deaths are the result of negligence on the part of law enforcement. However, it does mean that people have passed away during or following an arrest, necessitating thorough investigation in order to prevent this from happening in the future.

Three different sources have been used for this overview of fatal incidents: the registrations of Controle Alt Delete (since 2016), annual reports of the Public Prosecution Service (since 2021) and research into fatal incidents by Bureau Beke (2016-2020).

Controle Alt Delete

Since 2016, Controle Alt Delete has been monitoring how many people die during or after an arrest to gain insight into all deaths in fatal incidents. We do this by intensively following media reports, police reports and press releases from the Public Prosecution Service. In addition, Controle Alt Delete also records - as far as is publicly known - the background of the deceased, the migration background, any 'confused' behavior, death by police bullet or otherwise, prosecution involved law enforcement and city of death.

Public Prosecution Service

The National Criminal Investigation Department investigates fatal incidents. The National Investigation Department works on behalf of and under the responsibility of the Public Prosecution Service. Not all fatal incidents are investigated, Controle Alt Delete documented several cases that were not investigated by the National Investigation Department. Sometimes the Public Prosecution Service publishes a press release when the investigation has been completed, but often not. Twice a year, the Public Prosecution Service publishes an overview of the total number of investigations into fatal incidents. Until 2020, the Public Prosecution Service only included people who died as a result of a police bullet. Deceased such as Mitch Henriquez, Bekim Hassani and Umaru Sesay, who did not die after a police bullet, did not appear in these publications. The pressure from Controle Alt Delete has contributed to the fact that from 2021 the Public Prosecution Service will provide an annual overview of all investigations that the National Criminal Investigation Department conducts after people have died under the responsibility of law enforcement officers.

Bureau Beke

In 2022, Bureau Beke researchers published a report on fatal incidents in the period from 2016 to 2020. The Public Prosecution Service gave Bureau Beke access to the investigations conducted by the National Criminal Investigation Department. Files of the National Criminal Investigation Department were the only source for this investigation, no use was made of data that Controle Alt Delete had previously collected. As a result, the fatal incidents that were not investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department were not included in this study.

In the period 2014 to 2023, at least 122 people have died under the responsibility of law enforcement. Some are known to have died under the responsibility of law enforcement officials, with no information about what happened. We explain this below:

- In 2014, the Public Prosecution Service documented 12 cases. Controle Alt Delete didn’t monitor fatal incidents yet.

- In 2015, the Public Prosecution Service documented 6 cases. Controle Alt Delete didn’t monitor fatal incidents yet.

- In 2016, Bureau Beke documented 9 cases, Controle Alt Delete 10 cases. All cases that Controle Alt Delete documented were investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department.

- In 2017, Bureau Beke documented 10 cases, Controle Alt Delete 8 cases. All cases that Controle Alt Delete documented were investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department.

- In 2018, Bureau Beke documented 9 cases, Controle Alt Delete 7 cases. All cases that Controle Alt Delete documented were investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department.

- In 2019, Bureau Beke documented 10 cases, Controle Alt Delete 11 cases. However, 3 of the 11 cases that Controle Alt Delete documented were not investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department. This involved a man who committed suicide during arrest, a man who died in a collision with a police car, and someone who committed suicide in a police cell. That year, at least 13 people died (10 from Bureau Beke plus 3 from Controle Alt Delete).

- In 2020, Bureau Beke documented 16 cases, Controle Alt Delete also 16 cases. Two of the 16 cases that Controle Alt Delete documented were not investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department. This involved a man who died in a police cell, and a man who jumped from a roof when the police tried to bring him down. That year, at least 18 people died (16 from Bureau Beke plus 2 from Controle Alt Delete).

- In 2021, the Public Prosecution Service documented 13 cases, Controle Alt Delete 6 cases. All cases that Controle Alt Delete documented were investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department.

- In 2022, the Public Prosecution Service documented 20 cases, Controle Alt Delete 14 cases. Three of the 14 cases that Controle Alt Delete documented were not investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department. This involved a cyclist who was killed in a collision with the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, a man who jumped from a balcony during a police raid and a motorcyclist who crashed and died in a chase. That year, at least 23 people died (20 from the Public Prosecution Service plus 3 from Controle Alt Delete).

- In 2023, the Public Prosecution Service documented 7 cases, Controle Alt Delete 6 cases. One of the 6 cases that Controle Alt Delete documented was not investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department. This involved a fatal collision with a police car after a fall or jump from a viaduct. That year, at least 8 people died (7 documented by the Public Prosecution Service plus 1 from Controle Alt Delete).

- In 2024, the Public Prosecution Service documented 11 cases, and Controle Alt Delete documented 12 cases. Of these 12 cases, the National Criminal Investigation Department did not investigate 6 cases. These included a motorcyclist who died after a collision with an unmarked police car, a man in Sittard who collapsed when the police arrived, a man who shot himself after being shot at by the police, a driver who died in a car accident during a police chase, a man who died just a few hundred meters across the border in Belgium following a chase by Dutch officers, and another man who died during a police pursuit. That year, at least 17 people died (11 cases from the Public Prosecution Service, plus 6 from Controle Alt Delete).

This means that between 2016 and 2024, at least 121 people died while under the responsibility of law enforcement officials. It is possible that additional individuals died during this period under similar circumstances, of which neither Controle Alt Delete nor the Public Prosecution Service are aware. This is plausible because not all fatal incidents are investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department, and not all fatal incidents have been publicly reported.

Of the 121 cases documented by Controle Alt Delete between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2024, police officers were prosecuted in six cases. In two of these six cases, officers were convicted. Following a fatal collision involving a scooter in 2021, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) prosecuted an officer, who received a 240-hour community service sentence. The OM also prosecuted an officer involved in a fatal collision in 2022; this officer received a 200-hour community service sentence. In four of the six cases, officers were acquitted by the court. The officer involved in a fatal collision in 2016 was acquitted. The officer involved in a fatal shooting in 2018 was prosecuted after an Article 12 Code of Criminal Procedure (Sv) procedure and subsequently acquitted by the court. An officer involved in a fatal shooting in 2022 was also acquitted. In 2023, Mateusz died during his arrest. The OM announced the prosecution of eight officers involved in the incident. As of May 2025, this prosecution had not yet taken place.

Between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2024, 30% of the victims documented by Controle Alt Delete had a migration background, 8% were of Dutch-Dutch descent (no migration background), and the background was unknown in 62% of cases. This latter group has been excluded from the following calculation.

In 2024, there were 5 million people with a migration background and 12.9 million people without a migration background living in the Netherlands. Among people with a migration background, 1.1 individuals per million inhabitants per year died under the responsibility of law enforcement officers. Among people without a migration background, the figure was 0.1 per million inhabitants per year. This means that people with a migration background died (rounded) 10 times more often under the responsibility of law enforcement officers than would be expected based on their share of the population.

By comparison, black Americans die 2.5 times more often than white Americans under the responsibility of law enforcement than would be expected based on their share of the population.