Many Black People Get Killed By Police In Quiet Switzerland Too

It’s time we realized that black people getting killed by police is a global phenomenon

On a chilly winter’s day in November 2016, the police were called to an apartment building in Bex, Switzerland. Hervé, a 27-year-old Congolese man residing there had broken through his neighbor's door and pretended to threaten him with a bread knife before leaving the premises. Herve had mental health issues — the police however believed he was high and psychotic.

When the police arrived, a heated conversation ensued. Hervé chased them and threatened one of the cops — a junior cop in training, with the same bread knife. The cop panicked and shot him three times – twice in the leg and once in the chest. Hervé died at the scene. This week, the cop was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. He said he shot Hervé because he feared for his life. But one is left wondering, do you need to shoot someone three times to neutralize him or her? Wasn’t there excessive use of force in this case? And shouldn’t that excessive use of force be punished? Apparently, some don’t think so.

The cop gets to walk out of court a free man. He said, that after four years, he felt relieved to be acquitted of the murder charge. He expressed sympathy for the victim’s family, and that was it. He gets to live a free life while Herve’s children are left without a father. Different continent, same injustice, white cops can kill black people and get away with it.

The story of Hervé is one among numerous cases of police brutality against black people in Switzerland – there are more. Like the case of Mike Ben Peter, a Nigerian that refused a police search in March 2018. He wasn’t aggressive or insolent. He simply refused to be searched. He was beaten and kicked in the genital by the cops. He was restrained in a chokehold on his stomach, like George Floyd. He too couldn’t breathe and passed out. He died of heart arrest in the hospital a few hours later.

Some cocaine was found on Mike Ben Peter, but none was found in the toxicology report — meaning he wasn’t high on drugs. There were several cops at the scene. There must have been another way to restrain him rather than assaulting him and immobilizing him on his stomach. Police here are trained to not hold someone in a chokehold on their stomachs for more than two minutes, yet they held him down for longer than that. People in the neighborhood said they heard agonizing screams as Mike Ben Peter was being subdued. He was treated like an animal. The court case is still pending, but I think, like in the case of Hervé, Mike Ben Peter’s murderer – another cop, will also be acquitted.

I have shared two examples of police brutality against black people in Switzerland. There are so many more. Here is the long list:

• Khaled Abuzarifa suffocated during deportation on March 3, 1999. He was shackled and his mouth was taped shut.
• Samson Chukwu suffocated on May 1, 2001, with his hands tied behind his back while he was being deported to Granges prison in Valais, Switzerland.
• Cemal G. died on July 3, 2001, as a result of a violent police operation in Bern-Bethlehem, Switzerland.
• Hamid Bakiri hung himself in a prison cell at a Chur, Switzerland police station on September 20, 2001, the day before they planned to deport him.
• Claudio M. died on April 29, 2004, during a police arrest in Brüttisellen in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland.
• Yaya Bakayoko died on June 3, 2004, after falling from a window during a police operation in Basel, Switzerland.
• Anthony took his own life on September 1, 2004, in Bellinzona, Switzerland while in pre-trial custody.
• An unknown man, whose application for asylum was rejected, hung himself on 23 January 2005 while in pre-trial custody in Sarnen in the canton of Obwalden, Switzerland.
• Ousman Sow died of thirst during the night of January 2 to 3, 2007 while on a hunger strike in the prison Altstätten in St. Gallen, Switzerland.
• Alhusein Douto Kora died of breathing difficulties on March 5, 2007, during deportation from Switzerland to the Gambia.
• Mariame Souaré died on August 25, 2007, in a fall from the fifth floor while fleeing from the police in Geneva, Switzerland.
• Abdi Daud died on March 23, 2008, in Zurich University Hospital, after several months of imprisonment at Zurich, Switzerland Kloten’s airport prison.
• Andy Bestman drowned in the Rhine in Basel, Switzerland on May 30, 2008, while fleeing from the police.
• Joseph Ndukaku Chiakwa died on March 17, 2010, in Zurich, Switzerland Kloten’s airport during his deportation. He was fully shackled and had a spit shield and helmet over his head.
• An unknown woman whose asylum application was rejected died in a Zurich, Switzerland police prison on June 3, 2011.
• Medina Yassin Suleyman took her own life on March 18, 2012, due to the threat of deportation at the Linth Hospital in the canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
• Oleg N. took his own life in Zurich, Switzerland Kloten’ss airport prison on the night of November 11–12, 2012.
• Ilhan O. died on January 4, 2013, in a Zurich, Switzerland police prison.
• Subramaniam H. died on October 6, 2017, during a police operation at the asylum center in Brissago in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.
• Lamin Fatty died in police custody in Mont-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland on the night of October 23–24, 2017.
• Salah Tebbouche died on 30 December 2019.

Sadly enough, this list is incomplete. There are so many suspected cases of police brutality against black people in Switzerland that are not publicly known.

One could argue that there are far fewer cases of police brutality against black and brown people here in Switzerland than in say for example the US. But the reality is that there shouldn’t even be one case at all. In all the cases mentioned, the police have used excessive and unreasonable force when situations escalate in their encounters with black and brown people.

As a black person living here, this gives me constant anxiety – what if I was stopped by the cops and refused to be searched because they didn’t provide me with a solid enough motive, as is my right? What if my outspoken Generation Z mixed-race son or nephews were stopped? What if they were unfortunate enough to come across racist cops on a sick hunt to put them in their place, to humiliate or annihilate another black life?

Like in many countries, policemen here are largely right-wing leaning. That even sounds too nice when I write it so I’ll say it like it is, the large majority of cops here are Nazis and white nationalists. They don’t even hide it. They are known to be racists. They utter racist slurs without a smidgen of guilt or decency, that’s just the way it is. Their bosses know that they are racists, the communities know that they are racists, the politicians know that they are racists. But instead of trying to change these behaviors, the police departments argue that they do not have enough budget to conduct antiracism training for the entire police force.

So yes, Switzerland which is one of the richest countries in the world, does not have enough money to train its police force to not be racist. They pride themselves on being the headquarters of the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Olympic Committee, and the home to many international celebrities yet they can’t afford to lessen the amount of racism within the ranks of their police force. The hypocrisy is daunting and blatantly insulting.

My friends tell me to be patient. They say that it’s the old cops that are racists, that with the changing demographic, which is also happening here too, there’ll be more black and brown people in the police force in the future. But that’s still going to take a while. How many black lives will be lost by the time Switzerland has a more diverse police force? I don’t want to wait to find out.

When I look at each of these cases of police brutality I realize that most of the cops that commit these atrocious acts are young white men in their prime. They cannot be in positions of authority in public-facing roles. All police officers — including community and border patrol officers need antiracism training. They should not be allowed to hold these roles if they don’t go through rigorous training to weed out racists thoughts and actions. And if they murder black or brown people or anybody for that matter, they must pay the price.

I haven’t slept much this week. I feel like I am holding my breath for the length of time of Derek Chauvin’s trial. When I listen to the manipulative arguments of the defense, I cringe at the thought of Chauvin walking out of court a free man. I realize that if that happens, the message to the world of white racist cops out there will be a loud and clear one: Black Lives Still Don’t Matter. And my primal scream in response to that is: WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THEY DO.

Thanks for reading my perspective.

Sources: 1 Wa Baile, Mohamed (2019). Helvetzid. In: Mohamed Wa Baile/Serena O. Dankwa/Tarek Naguib/Patricia Purtschert/Sarah Schilliger (Eds.), Racial Profiling (229–238). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. The documentation of the cases comes from own research and the book augenauf (2015), «Dem einfach etwas entgegensetzen», Zürich: edition 8.