Car strikes Dutch Queens day crowd - Attempted assassination on royal family?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**BrookM**

All Queen’s Day festivities in Apeldoorn organized for the royal visit to the city, are canceled. A car struck the Queen’s Day crowd in Apeldoorn, injuring 14 people.

The visit of the royal family to Apeldoorn was disrupted Thursday morning when a speeding car broke through the barricades. The driver plowed his car through a crowd with high speed.

People had gathered in Apeldoorn to see the Queen’s Day parade, when the driver of the car plowed into the crowd.

The black car then hit against the monument of Apeldoorn ‘The Needle’ at the Loo Palace.

The royal family just drove at that time in a historical parade ‘on the Boulevard to the Palace and the streets were full of people.

Spectators had to jump away when a car plowed into the crowd with high speed.

People hit suffered from open wounds and leg wounds.

The car was driven by a man. He was stuck in the car wreck and was rescued by the fire brigade. The driver was taken to a police station for further investigation. Whether it is an accident or terrorist attack remains unclear.

The Royal family has been escorted to safety. “The shock and the images that the family have witnessed, lead to canceling all further celebrations for the rest of the day.”

Footage can be found here.

All I can say is WTF, things like these shouldn't happen in my country, it's just so.. unreal.

**bigfood**

Just saw it, too, on german internet-newspage. Strange incident. Why should sbd. want to kill the Dutch Royal Family? I saw a video of the crash with the statue. The man in the car behaved in a bit confused way, in my opinion. Maybe deranged? ( or cause he was stuck in the car). There was a man in front of the statue who managed to jump out of the way just in time! Good guardian angel!

**Kilkrazy**

What is it with people, are they nutters? The Dutch royal family are completely inoffensive and cool, middle-class royalty.

**ShumaGorath**

I'm not sure your title is particularly accurate given

The car was driven by a man. He was stuck in the car wreck and was rescued by the fire brigade. The driver was taken to a police station for further investigation. Whether it is an accident or terrorist attack remains unclear.

Also they were in a double decker bus, and he was driving a volkswagon. If assassination was the motive this man didn't plan well.

**BrookM**

As of right now five bystanders have died and the perp himself has been declared braindead by the papers due to the crash into the monument, so he'll be getting away without any punishment here.

As for the background of the perp, he was fired from his security job, about to be thrown out of his house and was a known recluse, but had no police record, no mental record, nothing out of the ordinary. With him being braindead we might never know what drove him to do such a thing. He could have been desperate, or looking for attention. Trying to ram a large bus with a Suzuki Swift isn't exactly a bright idea, especially seeing as the car was already banged up from ramming through the crowd.

I guess the saddest thing has to be that this has tainting this national holiday for years to come.

**dogma**

BrookM wrote:As of right now five bystanders have died and the perp himself has been declared braindead by the papers due to the crash into the monument, so he'll be getting away without any punishment here.

You mean other than being brain-dead?

BrookM wrote:
As for the background of the perp, he was fired from his security job, about to be thrown out of his house and was a known recluse, but had no police record, no mental record, nothing out of the ordinary. With him being braindead we might never know what drove him to do such a thing. He could have been desperate, or looking for attention. Trying to ram a large bus with a Suzuki Swift isn't exactly a bright idea, especially seeing as the car was already banged up from ramming through the crowd.

I guess the saddest thing has to be that this has tainting this national holiday for years to come.

My guess is that this was just some depression addled attempt to go out with a bang. Of course, that's just my intuition talking. We'll never know why he chose to engage in this particular brand of stupidity.

**Nofasse 'Eadhunta**

Tank Shock!

**BrookM**

The suspect died last night, all that is left now is cleaning up the pieces everywhere, let the media decide on a motive (most likely desperation due to loss of job and house) and remember this even for the coming decade.