Police apologize for not responding to report of man beating a child in Bergen op Zoom

The Bergen op Zoom police failed to respond to a report of an adult man beating up a child last week. The boy and his parents were told to make an appointment to press charges. The police have now apologized for how they handled the case. “This was far from ideal,” a police spokesperson told RTL Nieuws.

The incident occurred on Tuesday, July 14, at around 8:30 p.m. The man assaulted the boy on Heiningen, a street in a residential area in Bergen op Zoom, and fled the scene.

The boy and his parents called the police, who told them to make an appointment to file a report and did not dispatch a police unit to the scene, the spokesperson said. The family drove directly to a police station, where they were informed that they could not file a report without an appointment. “In hindsight, it now appears that this was not the correct course of action,” the police spokesperson said.

The incident generated a lot of attention on social media, the police said. “The police took this to heart, and the case was taken up immediately.”

The police have identified and questioned the suspect, a 19-year-old man from Vlissingen. The investigation has been concluded and handed over to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), which will decide how to proceed.

“We view this as a learning experience,” the police spokesperson told RTL Nieuws.