23 oktober 2020 De Monitor KRO NCRV 

Zeven jaar lang werkte Laura Keesman in een daklozenopvang midden op de Amsterdamse Wallen. Een mooie plek om te werken, maar ook een plek waar ze met geweld te maken kreeg. Laura vroeg zich af wat dit met werknemers doet en hoe daar binnen hun organisaties mee omgegaan wordt. Inmiddels promoveert ze op onderzoek naar geweldsituaties bij de politie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Volgens haar moeten we om hulpverleners te beschermen, beginnen met geweldsincidenten beter te registreren. [..]

 8 september 2020 in Het Parool

Meer agressief gedrag tegen hulpverleners door de coronacrisis? Volgens Laura Keesman, die geweldssituaties tijdens politiewerk onderzoekt, is er juist een structureel probleem waar werkgevers al jaren onvoldoende antwoord op geven. [..]

A few days ago the Dutch police published new figures on how often police officers encountered violence in the year 2018. Several media outlets reported that violence against officers had increased to around 10.600 cases, which comes down to roughly 25 instances of violence a day. Incidents range from verbal violence (5.000 cases) to physical violence during resisting an arrest (2.600 times), followed by violent encounters during nightlife (1.400) and so forth (Nos.nl, 2019; Nu.nl, 2019). Some media outlets made the effort of talking to officers who experienced violence to share their story. In this blog I want to highlight that police officers experience are an absolute must to understand these new figures on violence. [..]

"Man died after incident with the police in Waddinxveen [small-town]: 'Was possibly a confused man'." In red: 'Victim was supposedly hit hard by the police'

source: Telegraaf.nl

Imagine you are that police officer. You went to work this morning, probably hoping to arrive home safe at the end your shift. A call comes in: a confused man needs attention, and you are the officer send to respond. Minutes later you find yourself on top of this man, being called a 'motherfucker' and you're trying to restrain the individual. Not cooperating that well, you shout 'cooperate, now!' to the person and you feel you need to resort to other measures apart from verbal instructions. You punch the individual in the side ribs hoping he will lower his arm so that you can cuff him, and consequently move him to the police car. These are all strategies you learned in your police trainings of course. Then, all of the sudden, the personl stops breathing, and eventually dies.