Version imprimableThis child’s death is not an isolated accident. It is the culmination of police violence that has been escalating for years. We have already seen it at work during peaceful gatherings at the Stock Exchange, even when families and children were present. We saw it when grenades were thrown into playgrounds. We have seen it in the brutal arrests of minors. All this increasing, trivialized brutality can only lead to the irreparable.
And that is exactly what happened again on Monday.
The reaction of the authorities and some media outlets? Blame the victim. We read that the child was riding a scooter... on the pavement. As if that justified his death. As if that should divert attention from the behaviour of the police. We know their habits: excessive speed, irresponsible pursuit methods, endangering the neighbourhood. Once again, the weapon was not a baton or a gun: it was a vehicle travelling at full speed. In a park.
When we talk about disarming the police, we naturally think of firearms. But we also need to talk about vehicles, pursuits, and everything else the police use to injure, humiliate, and sometimes kill. This is not the first time a police vehicle has been used as a weapon. Less than a month ago, Christophe Amine was killed by a police officer who was driving at high speed without a licence and with his flashing lights off. But there was also Sabrina, Ouassim, Adil, Mehdi. And today, Fabian, an 11-year-old child, has been added to this far too long list. All of them killed by the police.
The scenario repeats itself: the perpetrators become victims. The police officers are presented as ‘in shock’, while the family is broken forever. The mayor, for his part, merely says that he has ‘a thought for this young boy, born in 2013’, but also ‘for the police officers’. This false equivalence is disgraceful. It is part of the problem.
It is time to face the truth: the police kill. They are protected, they are armed, they are covered by a class-based and racist justice system which, as we have seen in numerous cases, acquits more often than it convicts.
How many more children must die before this impunity ends? Let us not remain silent.
Our thoughts and solidarity go out to Fabian’s family and loved ones, as well as to all families who have suffered or are still suffering police violence.
A first gathering was held today and anger is growing. Fabian’s story is not separate from that of other victims killed by the police.
We defend the need to build a broad and united movement against police violence that brings together all the relatives of victims of police violence and all organizations and individuals who want to put an end to this police impunity.
At a time when the “Arizona” coalition government is planning to create special brigades dedicated to repressing young people in working-class neighbourhoods and Brussels is pushing through an anti-democratic merger of its police forces, the Gauche Anticapitaliste is calling for the disarmament of the police and the redirection of police budgets to social and healthcare budgets.
We do not need police officers driving at 60 km/h in a park to chase and kill a child riding a scooter. The police have no business in this type of situation. A different approach is essential.
We also defend the creation of a genuine independent commission for democratic and citizen control of the police to hold them accountable, zero tolerance for crimes committed by the police, and the dissolution of all incriminated brigades.
These demands are part of the struggle to abolish the police institution, which was created to defend the capitalist, racist and hetero-patriarchal order. And which is doomed to disappear along with it.
4 June 2025
Translated by International Viewpoint from Gauche Anticapitaliste.
