The three Dutch servicemen belonged to the Commando Corps, an elite special operations unit of the Royal Netherlands Army, and had traveled to the United States for training at a camp in southern Indiana. They were visiting Indianapolis while off duty and were shot in front of their downtown hotel at about 3:30 a.m. Saturday.
“We do many trainings of our servicemen in the United States, and we really don’t expect this to happen,” Ollongren said.
The Dutch reaction underscored the gulf between the realities of gun violence in the United States and in the Netherlands, two developed countries and NATO allies that cooperate on military matters but have vastly different levels of gun deaths. In the Netherlands, such a street shooting would be an anomaly. In the United States, it’s another weekend night.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett (D) told reporters Monday morning that the commandos could have been shot in a drive-by shooting after a barroom dispute, according to the Indianapolis Star.
“I don’t know the details of how it happened and what caused it to happen,” Hogsett said. “The tragedy is that it happened. The tragedy is people got into a dispute and they ultimately resolved that dispute by pulling out a gun and shooting.”
One of the soldiers, identified by the Marion County Coroner’s Office as 26-year-old Simmie Poetsema, died two nights later from his injuries, the Dutch Defense Ministry said in a news release Monday.
The other two commandos have injuries that are “currently believed to be non-life-threatening,” the Indianapolis police department said in a statement Monday. Dutch authorities said the commandos were “conscious and able to speak.”
Police have not identified a suspect or released any details of the investigation publicly. “The release of certain investigative information could negatively impact the ability to obtain justice in this case,” the department’s statement said.
Poetsema’s family flew to Indiana when they learned of the shooting and were by the soldier’s bedside in an Indianapolis hospital when he died.
The shooting and Poetsema’s death sent shock waves through the Dutch military, according to Maj. Mark van de Beek, a spokesman for the Royal Netherlands Army. Dutch troops train in the United States because of the wider range of facilities, he told The Washington Post. Training is on pause for now, he said.
The Dutch soldiers had been training at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, a “premier training facility” about 80 miles southeast of Indianapolis, Master Sergeant Jeff Lowry, a spokesman for the Indiana National Guard, wrote in an email.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Dutch counterpart on Monday to offer his “deepest condolences.”
“My thoughts are with their families and teammates,” he wrote on Twitter after the call.
Gun violence in the United States has surged in recent years. Firearms purchases hit record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been bought during that period, according to a Post analysis. More than 45,000 gun fatalities were recorded during each of the past two years, and the rate of gun deaths hit the highest level since 1995.
The United States’ “intentional homicide” rate was seven times that of the Netherlands in 2020, the last…
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