Violence Against Dutch Police Hits Record High, with Sharp Rise in Serious Attacks
The police recorded almost 13,000 violent incidents against officers last year, with attempted manslaughter and serious assault both up.
Violence against Dutch police officers rose again last year, with 12,896 violent incidents recorded against agents in 2025, up from 12,543 in 2024. More worrying still, according to the police, is that the most serious forms of violence have grown sharply, including attempted manslaughter and serious assault. The figures were released this week as part of the police's annual report on geweld tegen politieambtenaren (GTPA), or violence against police officers.
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The numbers
The total of 12,896 incidents works out to roughly 35 attacks on police officers every day. Within that figure, attempted manslaughter rose from 139 cases in 2024 to 155 in 2025, an increase of 13 percent. Serious assault rose by 21 percent, from 232 to 281 cases. Some officers were left with permanent injuries or trauma, the police said.
Other categories also went up. Violence in traffic situations rose from 876 to 966 incidents, while incidents involving people described as "verward," meaning confused or in a mental health crisis, increased from 677 to 744. Incidents around football matches were one of the few categories that fell, dropping from 240 to 158.
Verbal abuse, which has long been the most common form of aggression toward officers, again accounted for the largest share of cases.
A "structural problem," not isolated incidents
Corry van Breda, the national lead on violence against officers within the police's leadership, called the figures "unacceptably high." She said the figures pointed to a deeper pattern. "This is not about incidents, but about a structural problem," she said. "If you attack police officers, there must be consequences."
Police chief Janny Knol added that violence against officers is sometimes dismissed as being aimed at the uniform rather than the person inside it. "But when you experience it, that is not how it feels," she said. "Inside every uniform is a human being. Someone who joined the police to help people, to make the Netherlands safer."
The New Year's Eve spike
The sharpest increase came around the turn of the year. Between 31 December 2025 and 1 January 2026, the police recorded 344 violent incidents against officers, almost double the 179 reported a year earlier. Incidents specifically involving fireworks aimed at officers more than doubled across the year as a whole, from 118 in 2024 to 307 in 2025.
The police link the spike directly to anger over the upcoming consumer fireworks ban, which was approved by parliament in 2025 and will take effect for the New Year's Eve at the end of 2026. According to the police, frustration about the ban has been taken out on officers, in some cases by groups deliberately luring police into ambushes by setting fires and then attacking them with heavy fireworks when they responded.
The 2025-26 New Year's Eve was one of the worst on record. Around 250 people were arrested nationwide, two people died in fireworks accidents, and a national 112 emergency line was briefly overloaded. Amsterdam's neo-Gothic Vondelkerk burned down after a blaze that started shortly after midnight. The acting national police chief at the time, Willem Paulissen, said "almost all available riot police" had to be deployed.
Van Breda said the police are looking forward to the consumer fireworks ban taking effect, although she pointed out that much of the violence already involves heavy illegal explosives, which a ban on legal sales will not directly address.
What the police want next
Beyond the ban, Van Breda is calling for several other measures. She wants heavier sentences for those convicted of attacking police officers, which she described as "an important signal." She is also pushing for officers to be able to file reports anonymously, and for stronger protections to prevent personal information about officers from being traced or shared online.
The latter, known as doxing, became a criminal offence in the Netherlands in January 2024, carrying a possible prison sentence of up to two years. Police are still monitoring whether the new law is reducing actual incidents. According to Van Breda, more tools are also needed during everyday work to keep officers' identities and home addresses out of reach of people who might want to harm them.
A trend that has not reversed
The figures fit a longer-term trend. Before the pandemic, around 10,000 violent incidents against police officers were recorded each year. The number has remained around 12,500 to 13,000 since 2022, with the police describing it consistently as "unacceptably high."
Police union leader Nine Kooiman, chair of the Nederlandse Politiebond, has previously described the situation around New Year's Eve as officers feeling that they are "working in a war zone." Officials say the violence not only takes a heavy toll on individual officers and their families, but also undermines the values of the rule of law itself.
