Black Thursday in The Netherlands

The 30th of April is a National Holiday in our country. This day we celebrate the queens birthday.
Today in the city of Apeldoorn the queen and her family made a tour in an open bus through the city, as part of the festivities.

At 11.50 a attack took place on the bus. A man drove his car at high speed through the crowd in a attempt to hit the bus.
He missed the Royal bus by a few metres. Result.......
Five people died, Thirteen people critical wounded. The attacker himself is critical wounded also.
He has confessed to the police, who were trying to free him from the car wreck, the attack was aimed at the Royals.
A sad day, and now we are all thinking what this means for the open democracy we so embrace.

Martin.

Our thoughts are with all the families affected. Such a sad end to a good day.

Very sad. I've just seen it on the BBC News web site.

It's absolutely shocking...

I only heard the news when someone remarked on my photos on flickr linked onto depressing review... I had taken some photos from my flat at the vrijmarkt in Voorburg....not realising what was happening in the East.

And I thought the Oranje-Nassaus were revered in this country

Very sad, I saw it in this mornings papers.

You have to wonder what drives these people over edge

Saw this on the news last night, shockingly awful act

Sadly we will never know what drove this guy to do it. He died early this morning in hospital.

Besides the horror of this act there is one thing which is really bugging me since yesterday.
What should you do as a photographer, I mean there are some horrable images on the net about this tragedy which are to awfull to describe let alone post a link to it. Should you put thos photo's on the TV in the newspaper or on the internet.
Is "news" reason enough to put those terrible images somewhere where everybody can see them?

I'll guess, in this time and day, people want to see all the horrible facts. It's the world we live in. Sadly..........
Yesterday evening at Pauw and Witteman there were two Photog's interviewed.
One who made the pictures of the attacker, bleeding and hanging out of his car and the picture of the Royals, who saw what happened and showed nothing but despair and shock on their faces.

And then the other Photog, who started snapping, then saw the victims on the street. He threw his camera away and started giving CPR to on of the victims.

That's the balance that still exists, in mankind.........

I hope I never will have to take, that kind of decisions............

Martin.

I have just watched the interview of the two photgraphers.
This interview clarifies the situation a bit and how they decided what to do.

I'm in Apeldoorn now, my mom lives there and we were in Denmark on holiday when it happend. Some friends of the family where very near to where the car went through the people, luckely they are both okay.

About the photos. The well being of the victims comes firsts and making any photos after...???
I don't know what I should do, if I think about it I wont take a photo of the victims themself but the sadness in the faceses of the people would be powerfull... i think i would go for that in a very discreet manner if i would do anything at all...

I was very sad indeed to see this mayhem. It's always the case that one lunatic can cause so much devastation and destroy so many lives.

I wish I knew what the answer was.

There is no answer John. Not one that would explain it IMO.
And in this case, there will remain a lot of questions, unanswered.
Because the one responsible died last night.

Martin.

It wasn't a terrorist attack... and from what I gather it was either borne out of anger arising from either:

losing job or
losing access to children after divorce..

guy gives up hope and end it all in the public (and royal) gaze. I understand he was also trying to 'contact' the queen but mistimed his 'attack'....

But everyone's thought are with the families of all those affected.

No one ever said it was an terrorist attack.

Like Pwynnej said, he lost his job.
He was working at the security of the royal family and well he wanted revange maybe... we will never know.

Here is the latests news.
Still 6 in the hospital, 3 womens, 1 man and 2 girls (8 & 14 years).
The girls are doing well but 1 woman is still critical condition but is stable.

Some crazy Germans are disturbing a curch service in Apeldoorn saying it is punishment of god... maybe we should hang them

Let's not get carried away on this Stefan.
it's sad enough already, all of this happened on Queens day.

And those people who disturbed the service?? They happen to be members of a religious sekte, based in Germany and known to have been involved in a lot of incidents. They just wanted their 5 minutes of fame.(how sad this might sound) It has nothing to do with the memorial service on it's own. It could have happen in any church.They picked a lousy time, doing it. that's all.

There are no crazy Germans. Just crazy people who happen to live any country you can think of. Holland has enough of them also, don't you agree ?

Martin.