The printed-out photo of 11-year-old Fabian has been put into plastic to keep it safe from the rain. The photo is resting among bouquets of flowers, teddy bears and lit candles at the spot where the child was run down by a police car in a Brussels park 2½ weeks ago.
The boy had been riding an electric scooter, a fact that triggered a pursuit when he failed to stop for police. The chase ended fatally in a clearing in Elisabeth Park, just a short distance from the child’s home.
The death of Fabian, whose family is originally from Moldova, has stirred up fresh anger over the policing of immigrant communities in the Belgian capital.
Initial inquiries suggest the police car pursuing the boy was travelling at more than 40km/h, through the public park, without its sirens on. It has not been established whether Fabian was hit by the car while riding the scooter, or if he first fell and was then run over. The police officer driving the vehicle was arrested several days later.
Young friends have left drawings and letters in among the wide circle of flowers that has built up in the park. One child has drawn a picture of rain clouds above a tree. “For Fabian, love you,” the writing reads.
Other items set down beside the flowers tell a story of a typical 11-year-old boy. There were several footballs, packets of M&Ms and other sweets, a toy car, and some bottles of Fanta, presumably his favourite fizzy drink.
The family were tending to the temporary memorial in the park when I visited earlier this week. They walked around the ring of flowers, carefully picking up and removing some of the wilted bouquets that had lost their colour. More flowers will be left in their place. Fabian’s mother was too upset to talk about what happened.
“She’s burning inside,” says a Romanian man visiting the memorial at the same time, who has spoken to the family since the child’s death.
The fact the fatal police pursuit started because Fabian was under the legal age to ride an electric scooter in Brussels – 16 years old – has incensed many in the local community as a wildly disproportionate response. More broadly, the police force has been accused of applying a heavier hand to boys and teenagers from immigrant backgrounds.
The northwest suburb of the city where Fabian lived has a large immigrant community, who have rallied around the family since the boy’s death at the start of June.
Several hundred police officers attended a demonstration outside the Palace of Justice courthouse late last week, to show support for their colleague who has been arrested in the case.
The investigation into Fabian’s death is being led by Belgium’s federal police ombudsman. The police officer involved has been placed under house arrest, with a further court hearing expected in the next fortnight.
“Let it be clear that there is no question of the police officer having intended to kill the victim,” public prosecutor Julien Moinil told a recent press conference.
“There was an intention to prevent the driver of the scooter from continuing his journey,” he said, according to reports in the Belgian media. The tragic death of the child should not become a “trial” of the police in Brussels, he said.
The prosecutor said there had been “contradictions” between some of the initial statements taken from the officers involved in the collision, and the early findings of inquiries in the case. A full investigation into what had happened is continuing, Moinil said.
Silke van Herrewegen, a mother of three who lives near Elisabeth Park, says it felt like the whole neighbourhood was in a state of “collective mourning”. The injustice of Fabian’s death is enormous and the grief so shattering for the family, she says.
“I’m white, my children are white, I view the world through a white lens. I don’t get asked for my ID every day. That’s something the teens in the park who are of colour deal with,” she says.
The fault for any rising tension between the police and immigrant communities lay with the police, due to the “aggressive” way they went about their routine patrols, she says.
Children who heard what happened to Fabian had lots of questions for parents in the days afterwards. “Do you always die if you are taken away in an ambulance?” was one question Van Herrewegen says stood out for her.
“Our kids all play in the park,” she says. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
