A manhunt yesterday in Rijsbergen in the south of Holland was hampered due to a malfunction of the C2000 communication system, police union ACP tells NOS. The more than seventy officers involved in the operation have not been able to work well with each other and with their Belgian colleagues due to a lack of communication, the union said.
“We have already expressed our concerns regarding the system to the leaders of the Corps, but now the measure is complete”, says the union. “Especially because we took into account that the robbers at the center of the chase were dangerous with firearms”. According to the ACP, a major accident is awaiting.
C2000 is an independent communication network, with which many emergency services work. That network doesn’t work very well: voicemails don’t always arrive, or at all. “It’s the lifeline for police officers. They must be able to count on us,” Maarten Brink, president of ACP Zeeland-West-Brabant, told NOS Radio 1 Journaal and Omroep Brabant.
Brink explained what went wrong Thursday night: “There were problems with the C2000’s network. As a result, colleagues might not send and receive messages. This situation leads to dangerous consequences for police officers.”
The police have been working with the C2000 network for twenty years, but according to Brink it has never really worked.