Federal Police Commissioner General Eric Snoeck wants to "better train officers," he said on Wednesday during a press conference presenting the 2025 annual report.
At least 120 people have died in Belgium during police operations or shortly afterwards since the death of Jonathan Jacob in 2010, according to Knack, Le Vif, De Tijd and L'Echo.
"As the police, we are there to protect citizens. Citizens who die during police operations, or officers who die in the line of duty, are therefore not simply failures, they are human tragedies," Eric Snoeck responded.
The fact that figures exist is a good thing, says the Commissioner-General, who is calling for concrete action. "Our ambition is to further improve our services and to better train and equip our officers so that they can deal with situations in the field that are never easy. Think of cases involving people in distress or suffering from psychological problems. This is a daily reality."
"We still need to analyse the figures", added Eric Snoeck. "Under what circumstances did these cases occur and what were the consequences? Admittedly, this figure is too high, but so is the number of police officers who die each year in the line of duty."
