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Police wiped witness footage of DJ's arrest from mobile phone

Prosecutors are considering whether to bring charges against a police officer who admitted wiping video footage of the arrest of a DJ who claims to have been assaulted.

Amsterdam DJ Thomas Goethals, better known as The Flexican, released pictures showing bruises to his face following the incident at the Sneakerz in de Stad party in Eindhoven last Saturday night.

When party-goer Ingrid Lukken tried to film Goethals’s arrest on her mobile phone, she was handcuffed, arrested and taken to the police station where she spent the night.

Police in Brabant have now begun a criminal investigation into the deletion of the footage at the request of the public prosecutor's office (Openbare Ministerie).

After being released early on Sunday morning Lukken found the footage had been deleted from her phone.

“It’s left me really traumatised, I can’t get it out of my head,” Lukken, 47, told the Eindhovense Dagblad.

Police confirmed the officer had deleted the video footage, adding he regretted his actions and blamed them on “the pressure of the situation”.

Several politicians expressed their concern at the revelation, with the Socialist Party calling it “a serious mistake that lessons must be learned from”.

Liberal (VVD) MP Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said: “The police depend on having a squeaky clean reputation. This all sounds very strange to my ears.”

Goethals, 28, was arrested at the end of the night following an incident that appears to have begun when a police car ran over his foot.

His close friend and fellow DJ Yousef Gnaoui said: “They suddenly took off and accelerated, straight over Flex’s foot.”

According to Gnaoui, Goethals responded with a gesture, prompting a police officer to raise a baton to his throat.

“The police were so fired up with aggression, it was a bizarre sight,” said Gnaoui.

A police spokesman said Goethals had made a death threat against the officer and resisted arrest. “If he had co-operated it would not have come to this.”

Goethals himself has said little about the incident beyond releasing pictures of his injuries. “I can’t say anything yet, I have to keep it to myself, for my own protection among other things,” he said in a statement on Facebook drafted by his lawyer.

Both Lukken and Goethals have filed official complaints against the police in Eindhoven.

Source: Het Parool: SP: 'Politie maakt grove fouten in kwestie The Flexican'

Photo by Bas Bogers