“I screamed ‘My son is sick, he wants assist. They didn’t pay attention, they got here to kill,” says Momtaz Al Madani. On 30 Could 2018, Momtaz’s son Yazan Al Madani, 27, suffered a psychotic break and went screaming out on the balcony of his dwelling in Rotterdam, holding a knife. His father known as the police and shortly afterwards a number of officers arrived armed with weapons, shields, tasers and canines.
First, the police launched their canines on Yazan, then they tased him twice and shot him. Yazan died shortly afterwards. A yr later, the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Workplace determined to not prosecute the officers concerned on the grounds that they acted in self-defense. Since 2022, the European Courtroom of Human Rights has been investigating the demise of Yazan Al Madani.
Between 2020 and 2022, a minimum of 487 folks died in custody or in police operations within the 13 EU nations that publish knowledge or offered it to us.
France has the best absolute figures: between 2020 and 2022 it counted 107 deaths in custody or in police operations. It’s adopted by Eire, Spain and Germany, with 71, 66 and 60 deaths respectively. Nonetheless, based mostly on inhabitants, Eire is the nation with by far essentially the most deaths per capita: 1.34 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in that point interval, in comparison with 0.14 in Spain or 0.06 in Portugal. The precise variety of deaths is increased, as the info offered by a number of nations is incomplete.
“When making comparisons with different jurisdictions, you will need to keep in mind how these incidents are outlined and categorised, which might fluctuate significantly,” writes the nationwide police’s Ombudsman Fee in Eire.
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The UN advisable in 1991 that nations present public data on all police-related deaths. Portugal started publishing theirs in 1997, Denmark in 2012, and France solely in 2018. The Netherlands solely experiences instances investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Workplace, Eire solely experiences instances investigated by the Ombudsman and Sweden’s Company of Forensic Drugs experiences deaths it attributes to any police motion and its police report deaths as a consequence of police shootings. Lastly, Slovenia’s police publish the variety of deaths brought on by police motion. The opposite EU nations don’t usually report this data.
In 2023, the Workplace of the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights requested knowledge from all nations for deaths in custody, from arrest to remand in custody and imprisonment. In its response, the Council of Europe confirms the shortage of information and factors out that there’s not even a standard definition and methodology throughout the Union as to what constitutes a demise in custody and the way it needs to be investigated.
The Minnesota Protocol is a information promoted by the United Nations for the investigation of deaths for which the State, its dependent our bodies or brokers could also be accountable, by motion or omission. It needs to be utilized in conditions during which the deceased was in police custody or the place the demise could have been the results of police motion. Below the Minnesota Protocol the state should examine any demise occurring in suspicious circumstances and determine systemic failures that led to the demise and measures to forestall future instances. It additionally mandates that investigations into deaths involving members of legislation enforcement businesses be carried out with out affect from institutional hierarchies and that the method and findings of those investigations be topic to public scrutiny. No EU nation totally complies with these suggestions.
“‘It is nonetheless a form of taboo in France to speak about this, as a result of as quickly as you accuse the police, you are in opposition to the police,” says journalist Ivan du Roy, of Basta!, a French impartial media outlet, which grew to become the primary to gather data on deaths in custody and in police operations in 2014, years earlier than the Common Inspectorate of the Nationwide Police started publishing data in 2018.
Controle Alt Delete, a civil society organisation within the Netherlands, has been investigating instances of deaths in custody or police actions since 2016. “We began after we realised in 2015 that the Public Prosecutor’s Workplace and the police weren’t publishing all the info,” says Jair Schalkwijk, a lawyer and co-founder of the organisation. He factors out that, beforehand, the Public Prosecutor’s Workplace solely printed experiences on using weapons by officers and the variety of occasions they resulted in demise. “We’ve got compelled the federal government to report all instances of police-related deaths,” Schalkwijk provides. In neighbouring Germany, the federal authorities nonetheless solely collects figures on deadly shootings by the police, as is the case in Sweden.
Migrants and other people with psychological sickness, the primary victims
Of the 13 nations which have offered knowledge on deaths in touch with the police between 2020 and 2022, Hungary supplies data on the nationality of the deceased in all instances, and Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Spain in among the instances. Collectively they offered nationality knowledge for 55 of the 487 deaths reported in these three years. Half have been foreigners.
Mathieu Rigouste, is an impartial French sociologist: he hyperlinks this focus of deaths amongst migrant populations to the colonial historical past of nations reminiscent of the UK, Spain and France. “Police crimes are targeting non-white proletarians,” Rigouste says. Adama Traoré, born in France to Malian dad and mom, is a working example: in 2016, police arrested Traoré in Beaumont-sur-Oise, exterior Paris, and he died in police custody. “Traoré was a black proletarian from a suburban neighbourhood who was chased by the police, captured and strangled. He was criminalised first by the police after which by the media and politicians,” Rigouste says.
Affected by a psychological sickness additionally performs a serious position. A lot of the public administrations we contacted didn’t present particular data on this both. Solely Denmark, Spain, France and Germany confirmed that the deceased had psychological well being issues or was in a “state of agitation” in 43 instances.
Essentially the most present Dutch experiences don’t present knowledge on whether or not the deceased suffered from psychological well being issues, however an earlier report commissioned by the Dutch authorities on deaths between 2016 and 2020 does: there may be knowledge on 40 of the 50 individuals who died in that interval, and of these, 28 suffered from psychological sickness. The information collected by Controle Alt Delete is much more stunning. Of the 105 deaths they’ve monitored since 2015, round 70% have been folks affected by some type of psychological sickness.
Yazan Al Madani was one of many individuals who died within the Netherlands in 2018. He had arrived within the nation a yr earlier from Syria as a refugee. Nonetheless, Yazan’s arrival within the nation was very troublesome. For the primary eight months he had no entry to psychiatric therapy, after which the Dutch administration rejected his request for the medicines he wanted for housing and for reunification along with his spouse, who can also be Syrian. “He was left on the road with nothing: no cash, no spouse, no home, no medical therapy… nothing,” says his father, who additionally got here to the Netherlands as a refugee. “They killed him a thousand occasions earlier than they killed him for actual.”
In September 2024, the UN Committee on the Rights of Individuals with Disabilities alerted the Netherlands and Belgium to the excessive variety of folks with disabilities who had died underneath the duty of their legislation enforcement businesses and advisable that the nations enhance their legislation enforcement coaching.
Gunshot wounds, the main reason behind demise
Gunshot wounds by officers are the main reason behind deaths in custody or in police interventions. Within the nations which have offered data on causes of those deaths, a couple of in three deaths between 2020 and 2022 have been from gunshot wounds. Not less than 98 folks died. 41 have been in France and 27 in Germany.
In line with Basta!, the variety of deaths brought on by police shootings in France started to rise in 2017. That yr, a reform of the Public Safety Legislation, loosened the boundaries on when officers may use their firearms.
Police capturing deaths aren’t the one ones. The police generally kill folks utilizing supposedly non-lethal weaponry, reminiscent of tasers, which they often use following protocols that contradict the producer’s suggestions, reminiscent of utilizing them in opposition to folks in a state of agitation.
Between 2020 and 2022, now we have recognized a minimum of eight instances of demise involving using tasers, 4 in Germany, three within the Netherlands and one in France, and in 5 of those instances the individual was mentally sick or agitated. Along with these, a minimum of another individual died as a consequence of police violence throughout the identical interval. Catalan autonomous police the Mossos d’Esquadra killed Badalona resident Antonio with six shocks from a taser. The Catalan Division of the Inside reported {that a} weapon was used on this police motion, however didn’t specify that it was a taser gun, which means that there could also be different such instances hidden within the official figures.
The second most repeated official reason behind demise in our investigation is “pure,” with 55 folks dying between 2020 and 2022. It’s a catch-all used primarily by Spain, which experiences 27 pure deaths, usually with out additional knowledge on the context. In 2018, Stephan Lache additionally died “pure demise” in police custody in Spain. in line with the Ministry of the Inside. Spanish Nationwide Cops arrested Lache at 4am and took him to a Madrid police station. The police report states that he had an aggressive perspective and self-harmed, so the police known as the emergency medical service. The photographs recorded by the police station’s cameras present how three medical workers and two cops seize him to provide him an injection. The subsequent day, the cops discovered him lifeless in his cell.
Arrested for drunkenness, died in custody
In lots of different deaths labeled as “pure,” the deceased confirmed a state of drug and alcohol intoxication.
In Eire, being drunk in a public area is a prison offense. The Irish Ombudsman’s knowledge on deaths in custody or in police actions doesn’t embrace data on whether or not the deceased individuals have been drunk, however in 2022 the Irish Ombudsman made a lot of suggestions aimed toward stopping deaths in custody associated to this difficulty, which aren’t binding.
Though the Finnish Ministry of the Inside has not offered knowledge by yr, it confirmed to Civio that 16 of the deaths which have taken place between 2013 and 2023 have been brought on by alcohol and drug intoxication. “Alcohol and drug use was a minimum of a contributory consider deaths in additional than half of the instances,” writes the Police Division of the Finnish Ministry of the Inside, which provides that the police historically take drunk folks to the police station, “even when the individual is calm and doesn’t trigger any disturbance to public order or safety.” The ministry is making an attempt to get cops to desert this follow, it states: “As an alternative of police providers, they would wish well being monitoring.” Finnish police have carried out measures to forestall such deaths, reminiscent of extra coaching for officers, extra surveillance cameras and using know-how to observe the very important capabilities of detainees.
Between 2020 and 2022, now we have recognized a minimum of 43 individuals who dedicated suicide in police custody. Most of those deaths have been in Spain, France and Denmark, however in different nations, with fewer deaths in touch with the police, and fewer folks, suicides account for nearly all deaths in police custody. Latvia reported 5 deaths in police custody between 2020 and 2022, and two extra in 2023, all by hanging. Hungary reported six deaths, 4 of them additionally by hanging. In Germany, no state has reported instances of suicide, however a minimum of one among them, Bavaria, factors out that such deaths aren’t included within the experiences in the event that they haven’t been preceded by coercive measures by officers.
Inadequate analysis
Regardless of the UN’s suggestion that the method of investigating safety force-related deaths needs to be topic to public scrutiny, usually data on these investigations is scarce. Austria states that it has been restricted to autopsies. “In all instances, a medical examination was carried out and a subsequent report was made to the general public prosecutor. Since no indicators of third-party guilt have been present in any of the instances, the general public prosecutor didn’t provoke any investigative measures,” the Austrian Inside Ministry states.
The Netherlands Public Prosecutor’s Workplace’s annual report on police-related deaths consists of solely instances which have been investigated. Nonetheless, yearly there are a few instances that don’t see justice, Controle Alt Delete experiences.
Since 2010, the European Courtroom of Human Rights has condemned EU nations 236 occasions for failing to analyze potential instances of torture or mistreatment and an extra 157 occasions for failing to analyze deaths, each in touch with the police and in different contexts. Romania, which refused to offer knowledge on police-related deaths to our investigation, has 79 convictions for failing to analyze potential instances of mistreatment and torture, and an extra 60 for deaths, together with these of 5 folks killed in an anti-government demonstration. Bulgaria and Italy, which additionally refused to offer knowledge for our investigation, have 57 and 33 convictions respectively for violations of the European Conference on Human Rights.
Usually of demise, public administrations have additionally failed to offer knowledge on prison or employment penalties for the cops concerned. They did present such knowledge for 97 of the 487 instances registered between 2020 and 2022. Of those, the one case during which the administration has confirmed the imprisonment of the officers concerned occurred within the Basque Nation in Spain. In 84 instances investigated, the officers concerned didn’t endure any penalties. The investigation continues to be ongoing in three instances.
The information printed by the Netherlands Public Prosecutor’s Workplace doesn’t embrace data on the conclusions of the investigations, however Controle Alt Delete requested particulars on every case. “We all know that, from 2016 till now, in 6% of the instances, the officers concerned have been prosecuted, normally in street site visitors deaths,” Schalkwijk says. In one among these instances, the officers have been punished with 200 and 240 hours of neighborhood service respectively, and in one other case the officer was acquitted.
Francesca Barca (Voxeurop) and Maria Delaney (Noteworthy) have contributed to this text.
Methodology
For this investigation Civio and different EDJNET members requested from all EU nations, based mostly on nationwide transparency legal guidelines and thru authorities press places of work, knowledge on instances of people that have died in police custody (whether or not in police stations, detention facilities for foreigners or different institutions run by police forces) and in police actions between 2010 and 2022, together with data on the date, age, nationality and gender of the deceased, the place the place the individual died, the explanation for detention, the reason for demise, whether or not weapons have been concerned and what sort, whether or not the demise was the topic of a judicial investigation, the findings of this investigation and any employment or prison proceedings in opposition to the officers concerned. We obtained responses as follows:
Spain. We made this request to:
-The Ministry of the Inside, in relation to the Civil Guard and the Nationwide Police: The knowledge submitted on deaths in police actions covers the years 2015 to 2022, with knowledge on the yr, the place -public street, dwelling or other- and reason behind demise -natural, unintentional or suicide. We’ve got additionally used the knowledge offered by the Ministry to the parliamentary query requested by Bildu MP Jon Iñarritu, printed by La Marea, which incorporates context on every demise. On deaths in police custody, the knowledge offered consists of the yr, reason behind demise -natural, unintentional or suicide- and the power the place the demise occurred -ACUDE, municipal morgue, court docket premises, police premises aside from ACUDE, dwelling, CIE, hospital, switch and penitentiary centre. In addition they despatched data on deaths of prisoners.
By means of the press workplace, we requested the Ministry of the Inside if they’d knowledge on deaths associated to native police forces, however the ministry confirmed that they don’t accumulate this knowledge.
-Division of Safety of the Basque Authorities, in relation to the Ertzaintza. The reply consists of all the knowledge requested.
-Division of the Inside of Catalonia. The knowledge offered consists of age, gender, nationality, whether or not there was an investigation, however not the conclusion of the investigation or the weapons concerned.
Germany. Kira Schacht of Deutsche Welle tailored our request and despatched it to the 16 states that make up the nation. They responded as follows:
-Berlin: figures for deaths in police custody and in police actions from 2010 to 2022, with out additional data, and a particular report on deaths in 2022 printed in response to a parliamentary query.
-Baden-Württemberg: knowledge on deaths in police operations, distinguishing whether or not by firearm or different unspecified causes, and in custody between 2018 and 2022, together with knowledge on nationality and age.
-Bavaria: deaths in custody and in police actions between 2013 and 2022, with data on nationality, gender, age and reason behind demise. The Bavarian Ministry of the Inside notes that it doesn’t embrace instances of suicide or different deaths occurring throughout arrest or custody with out prior coercive measures.
-Brandenburg: knowledge on firearm deaths by officers between 2010 and 2022, together with in some instances age and nationality.
-Bremen: deaths in police operations or in custody from 2014 to 2022, with data on nationality and age. They don’t specify reason behind demise however be aware that there have been no deaths by firearms.
-Hamburg: The Division of the Inside submits three experiences made on the idea of parliamentary questions on deaths between 1990 and 2019, 2020 to 2022, and 2023.
-Hesse: The State Police Workplace offered solely knowledge on deaths in police operations between 2010 and 2022 during which police motion was the direct reason behind demise, with data on whether or not a firearm, taser or pepper spray was used.
-Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: the Ministry of the Inside issued a press launch, now not obtainable on the internet, on the one demise they declare to have precipitated, stating nationality and findings of the investigation.
-Decrease Saxony: The Ministry of Justice said that no knowledge is collected on deaths in police custody. On deaths in police custody, it reported 5 instances submitted by the Ministry of the Inside, together with data on the reason for demise. It included knowledge on deaths in police custody from a parliamentary report on using tasers.
-North Rhine-Westphalia: The administration offered no knowledge . Knowledge on deaths in police operations since 2015 are from a parliamentary report.
-Rhineland-Palatinate: this state reported deaths in police operations from 2015 to 2022, with all the knowledge requested. They despatched a desk with ten instances and add another case as a consequence of a site visitors accident. They added that the Ministry of Household, Girls, Tradition and Integration states that there have been no deaths in detention facilities for foreigners.
-Saarland: this state despatched deaths in police interventions and in custody between 2010 and 2022 with a short account of the occasions, age of the deceased and conclusions of the investigation.
-Saxony-Anhalt: The Ministry of the Inside offered a report on deaths precipitated by way of firearms in police interventions from 2000 to July 2020, noting that there have been no extra deaths brought on by firearms till the top of 2022 and including one other demise in 2022 during which no firearm was used. It offered one other report on deaths in police custody between 1995 and Could 2018.
-Schleswig-Holstein: the State Police Workplace offered knowledge on deaths in police interventions from 2016 to 2022, with nationality, age, gender, context during which it occurred, weapon concerned. It said that it investigated all instances.
We included knowledge from the annual experiences on use of firearms carried out by the German Police College on behalf of the Standing Convention of Ministers of the Inside and Senators of the Federal States (IMK). The experiences are printed by CILIP, a publication of the Institut für Bürgerrechte & öffentliche Sicherheit, an establishment affiliated with the College of Legislation of the Humboldt College of Berlin. We additionally included instances of demise by taser collected by CILIP for which an official communication is on the market.
Czech Republic. Daniel Kotecký of EDJNet associate Denik Referendum tailored our request and despatched it to the Police Presidency, which supplies the knowledge aside from the conclusions of the investigations.
Eire. Maria Delaney, of EDJNet companions Noteworthy and The Journal tailored our request and despatched it to the Irish Police. They refused to offer the knowledge however did confer with the Ministry of Justice’s response, with knowledge from the ombudsman to a parliamentary query. We supplemented that with knowledge from the Ombudsman’s annual experiences, which give the full variety of deaths and the context, reminiscent of in custody, demise after contact with officers, street site visitors accidents, throughout arrest, after being in custody and others, for the years 2021 and 2022, and solely the full variety of deaths for the opposite years.
Hungary. Szabó Krisztián of EDJNet parter Atlatszo tailored our request and despatched it to Hungarian authorities. The reply consists of deaths in police interventions from 2015 to 2022 and in custody since 2013, together with all requested data besides the conclusions of the investigation, which is barely offered in instances of police actions and one case of deaths in custody.
Sweden. Whole variety of deaths per yr in police interventions are from the Swedish Forensic Drugs Company’s statistics from 2019 to 2023 and statistics on police capturing deaths from 1994 to 2023 are these printed by the Swedish Police.
Netherlands. Knowledge are from the annual experiences of the Public Prosecutor’s Workplace, together with knowledge on police-related fatalities in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Knowledge for the years 2016 to 2020 are from the research Deadly Police Incidents. Patterns of deadly incidents within the context of policing, commissioned by the Dutch authorities. We additionally included knowledge from the police fatality register of Controle Alt Delete, a civil society organisation, together with official communications.
Austria. Civio despatched our request to the Ministry of the Inside. The reply consists of the full variety of deaths per yr in custody and in police interventions between 2014 and 2023, whether or not they have been investigated and, within the case of deaths in police custody, a short account of the occasions, nationality and age of the deceased.
Finland. Civio despatched our request to the Ministry of the Inside. The reply consists of deaths in police custody since 2010 and by the Public Prosecutor’s Workplace since 2017, which additionally consists of deaths in police custody.
Denmark. Civio despatched our request to the Police and Public Prosecutor’s Workplace. The reply confirms the variety of deaths per yr from 2012 to 2023 in custody and in police actions. This consists of knowledge from the annual experiences of the Danish Police Appeals Authority, in existence since 2012, during which there are figures for deaths in touch with the police and a short abstract of the info in some instances.
Latvia. Civio despatched our request to the Ministry of the Inside. The reply offered knowledge on deaths in custody between 2020 and 2023, with data on age and gender. and said that since 2015 there have been no investigations into instances of deaths as a consequence of police violence.
France. EDJNet associate Voxeurop and Civio requested knowledge from the Police and the Ministry of the Inside, with out response. The information included are from the experiences of the Inspection générale de la police nationale (IGPN), which since 2018 embrace knowledge on police-related deaths. In 2018 solely the full variety of fatalities is included, in 2019 they supply data on weapons concerned, and since 2020 the experiences embrace transient summaries of the context of every demise. Francesca Barca of Voxeurop carried out the interviews with Mathieu Rigouste and Ivan du Roy.
Portugal: knowledge are from the annual experiences of the Inspeção-Geral da Administração Interna, accessed with the collaboration of Pedro Miguel Santos of EDJNet parter Divergente and the Fumaça challenge. The information embrace the full variety of deaths per yr, with out specifying context, and what number of of those have been by firearm. It additionally signifies the police power concerned, however with out specifying the reason for demise, so now we have not included this data. The experiences don’t embrace instances associated to the Judicial Police.
Slovenia: knowledge are from nationwide police annual experiences [Policija](https://www.policija.si/o-slovenski-policiji/statistika). Taja Topolovec of EDJNet associate Pod črto tailored our request and despatched it Slovenian authorities. The federal government’s reply listed 5 deaths not as a consequence of police actions between 2018 and 2023, however now we have not included them as a result of the reply didn’t specify the years of every demise.
We requested data from the next nations, which have refused to offer the info:
Slovakia. The administration refused to answer to the request for data made by Tomáš Hrivňák, of EDJNet associate DennÍk N on the grounds that it didn’t have this data.
Italy. The Ministry of the Inside referred the request made by Gianluca De Feo, of EDJNet associate OBC Transeuropa, to a few departments, one among which refused to offer the knowledge on the grounds that it entails processing a considerable amount of knowledge, exceeding the provisions of the Italian transparency legislation.
Romania: The Common Police Inspectorate refused to offer the knowledge requested by Civio on the grounds that the transparency legislation doesn’t oblige them to course of the knowledge they’ve in an effort to present “statistics on demand”.
Estonia: The Police and Border Guard Board refused to offer the knowledge requested by Civio stating that they don’t accumulate this type of knowledge.
The next nations are pending response:
Bulgaria: The request for transparency, made by Francesco Martino of EDJNet associate OBC Transeuropa, stays unanswered since September 2023.
Belgium: Joel Matriche, of Francesco Martino Le Soir, requested the knowledge from the Belgian administration, which has to this point solely offered knowledge on individuals who have died in detention facilities for foreigners, which we didn’t embrace in our evaluation.
Poland: We requested the knowledge from the Ministry of the Inside, which referred us to the Police. The Police replied that they don’t have knowledge on the degree of element requested. We requested them to offer us with knowledge on the degree of element obtainable, to which they haven’t responded thus far.
Civio has additionally requested this data from the Ministries of the Inside and police departments of Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Cyprus, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Norway, however they’ve to this point failed to reply.
