Killing of Mitch Henriquez

The official narrative that Henriquez had died at the hospital was immediately disputed by bystanders who had filmed the incident; the killing led to four days of rioting in The Hague and a ban on public assembly.

RTL Nieuws revealed in 2021 that the Hague police force had spent €1.3 million on lawyers to defend the officers involved in the killing.

[4] This narrative was immediately contested by footage filmed by concerned bystanders which showed the police picking up Henriquez's unresponsive body and placing it in a van.

[4] Henriquez was killed on Sunday and footage of his death immediately began to circulate on social media, with #mitchhenriquez becoming the top Dutch language hashtag on Twitter.

[5] On Monday night, people gathered outside a police station in the inner-city district of Schilderswijk to protest, resulting in 61 arrests after three days of riots.

[8] One week later on Saturday 7 July, Henriquez's family led a silent procession of 300 people from Moerwijk station in The Hague to the Zuiderpark.

[8] The Public Prosecution Service (Dutch: Openbaar Ministerie, OM) decided in 2016 to charge two of the five police officers who had been suspended.

[9] The District Court of the Hague postponed the trial because a new expert report had given a different cause of death for Henriquez, namely cardiac arrest or heart arrhythmia.

It was also noted that the conduct of the former chief of police Gerard Bouman would be analysed since he had promised the five officers that they would not be sacked and that they would be financially compensated for their suspension.

[20][5] Academic work has noted that it was only because the death of Henriquez was filmed that the false official narrative could be challenged and eventually overturned.

[22] The chairman of the Dutch Association of Criminal Lawyers said it was clear that the police officers were being given the best legal assistance money could buy and that this created an imbalance in the proceedings.