A 40 year old man from the Antwerp suburb of Sint Niklaas caused a traffic jam Thursday afternoon when he refused to follow the orders of a traffic cop because she was female.
The Syrian Mahmoud D. was supposed to yield to another car at a busy intersection. He didn't like that, and instead drove into the intersection and stopped there. The city center was soon complete blocked up. Police sent agents to clear up the traffic jam, but the Syrian refused to follow the instructions of a female police agent because she was a women, says prosecution spokesperson Renzo Ottoy. Nobody could continue driving, but he wouldn't budge a millimeter and instead sat cross-armed in his car.
Several other agents who were directing traffic up the road tried to convince him to move, but he refused. Instead he rolled up his window and turned off his car.
The police called for reinforcements and tried to get the man out of his car. In the end they smashed in the widow, but the man continued to resist and injured a female police officer. The police used pepper-spray to restrain him. He was overpowered and taken to the police station.
Police chief Jack van Peer says the man forgot his Dutch one he got to the police station, and demanded an interpreter. The agents called in an interpreter, and when the man saw she was a female too, he refused to talk to her. The same went for the female attorney assigned to the case. The Syrian was then brought before a magistrate, who was also female. It's unclear whether he agreed to speak to her, but in any case she decided to arrest the man.
Source: GvA, Nieuwsblad (Dutch), h/t reader
