Some victims of the violence in Molenbeek on Sunday night also criticized the police for taking too long to intervene. One person, who was beaten while trying to protect his 73-year-old father when hooligans invaded their family-run DIY store, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF that law enforcement did not show up for 20 minutes.
Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said last month he was finalizing a long-awaited plan to merge the capital’s six police zones into a single, organized command in a bid to better coordinate responses — and would present it this summer.
“We will move quickly on the merger of police zones, with the first implementation in Brussels,” his spokesperson Schotte told POLITICO. “The recent events have shown the urgent need for a single command and a faster police response force when necessary.”
Christophe Vandeviver, research professor of criminology at Ghent University, said the hooligans were troublemakers, regardless of their alleged political ideology.
“These are groups that want to riot. Whether they’re right or left wing, they are motivated by the fact that they want to create chaos, create havoc in Brussels,” he said.
“Anonymity and being in a large group makes people feel invincible. It’s easy to be tough in a group,” he added, noting the propensity of hooligans to wear black clothing and scarves around their faces to evade authorities.