Brussels’ police violence problem

Youssef Kobo is founder of A Seat At The Table, a Brussels-based mentoring and leadership program for disadvantaged youth, students and young professionals. 

In Brussels, the death of a 23-year-old Black man in police custody has shone a light, once again, on a decades-old problem plaguing the country — and much of Europe. 

Whether it’s on the playgrounds of Malmö, the banlieues of Marseille or the street football squares in Amsterdam, in cities like Brussels — with large ethnic minorities — you will hear young people vent to one another about their latest run-ins with police. Some traumatized by their experiences, others wearing them as a badge of honor.  

In all of these stories, there is a common thread: A deep distrust of police, an overwhelming feeling of being unjustly targeted based on the color of their skin, and a deep conviction that society will not take their experiences of ethnic profiling and police violence seriously.   

Over time, this combination of alienation and sense of powerlessness creates a fertile breeding ground for outright hostility against all law enforcement.

This is what happened in the Belgian capital last week, when a protest in reaction to the death of Ibrahima Barrie, the young man who died in police detention, turned violent. The riots saw protesters throw projectiles at police officers, five of whom were wounded, and resulted in over 100 arrests. 

If the exact causes of Barrie’s sudden collapse and death in police custody are still under investigation, the reasons for the anger that spilled onto the streets in response are easier to identify.   

Police statements about the events leading up to Barrie’s arrest and his death in custody changed multiple times over the course of several days. 

First, authorities claimed he was arrested for violating the city’s 10 p.m. curfew, which was impossible, as his time of death was declared by hospital staff to be 8:22 p.m. Later, they said he was taken into custody because he attempted to run away from police. This account was disputed by bystanders who said he was arrested because he was trying to film police officers carrying out COVID-related police controls.  

In the press, there were reports that he was found with ecstasy pills on his person and that he had collapsed as a result of his drug intake. This was later dispelled by a toxicology report, which also made note of a previously unknown heart condition that the forensic pathologist who performed the post-mortem clarified couldn’t account for his death alone. It also later emerged that it took officers between five and seven minutes to come to his aid after he collapsed, during which time he was left alone on the floor.  

These conflicting statements, by police and in the media, added to the anger and confusion felt by many in his community, who understandably felt that they were not being told the truth — and that they had been here before.  

Among those who took to the streets Wednesday evening in protest, some carried posters with the names of other young people — all of them from ethnic minority backgrounds — who lost their lives during a police intervention, including Mehdi B. (17 years old) and Adil C. (19). Both young men lost their lives, in separate incidents, after being hit by a police vehicle during a police chase that resulted from a minor infraction. Coverage of their deaths tended to focus on the protests that followed those deaths, and aggressive behavior by those attending toward police. 

Indeed, among the general public, the news of Barrie’s death did not elicit much attention until the ensuing protests spiralled out of control. The public outcry following Wednesday evening’s riots — which saw a police station set on fire and damage done to property — greatly outweighed any indignation over Barrie’s death.  

Belgians’ reaction — to the death of a young Black man and to the ensuing riots — make it painfully clear that the lessons of last summer’s global Black Lives Matter protests have not yet taken hold among some segments of the population and among those in power. 

If those mass protests, sparked by the killing of George Floyd by police in the United States, should have taught us anything, it is that different communities within the same country have vastly different experiences with law enforcement as a result of structural issues such as systemic racism. 

When the U.S. protests spilled over into Europe, and tens of thousands gathered in Brussels, London and Paris to demand an end to police violence, commentators — in Belgium and elsewhere — were perplexed: They couldn’t figure out why so many people — many of whom were young people from ethnic minority backgrounds — would take to the streets for something that had happened in America.  

They were clearly not paying any attention ­— and by all indications, they are still not paying attention. For over four decades, young men with North African and sub-Saharan African roots have been complaining about ethnic profiling, harassment and violence by police forces — a reality that most political actors and pundits have willingly ignored for years.  

It’s an inherent denialism that stubbornly persists even among the clearest cases of police violence. Nobody in modern Europe wants to see the myth dispelled that all citizens are treated equally in a democratic society.  

Many Brussels youth have no faith in the ongoing investigation by the public prosecutor’s office and are tired of not being taken seriously. Of course, this frustration in no way excuses the violence that erupted in Brussels last week. There is no question that those who participated in the riots and are guilty of attacks against police must be held accountable. 

That said, it is high time Brussels-based politicians broke their silence on the topic of police violence and took a deeper look at what is happening in their own backyards.  

Most have refrained from commenting on the events, fearing they will become caught up in the crossfire between conflicting public opinion: those voters angered by the riots versus those youth demanding justice for their peers.  

More than ever, these times of polarization and identity politics call for a reset. We cannot afford another Mehdi, Adil or Ibrahima.