When I read the headline this morning about two people being shot dead in a McDonald’s restaurant in the Netherlands, I suspected the involvement of cultural enrichment in the crime. Multiple murder victims of an attack with firearms — in the Netherlands, that’s almost certain to involve persons with a migration background.
When I delved into the details, sure enough, the victims were “Turkish-Dutch”. According to the Grauniad:
Netherlands: Two People Shot Dead in McDonald’s Restaurant
Police search for gunman following apparent targeted attack in city of Zwolle
Two people were killed after a gunman opened fire in a McDonald’s restaurant in the northern Dutch city of Zwolle, according to police and local media.
“Two people were killed in a shooting incident,” Dutch police tweeted late on Wednesday, with local broadcaster RTL Oost saying the incident happened around 6pm in a McDonald’s.
Witnesses told RTL Oost the men were having a meal when a gunman walked into the restaurant and fired shots at them in an apparent targeted attack.
“The man first ordered a meal and sat at a table across from the two victims before shooting,” RTL Oost said.
“There was massive panic among the patrons who all tried to flee outside,” the broadcaster added.
The assailant then fled.
Police and ambulances rushed to the scene where rescue workers tried to resuscitate one of the wounded victims, who later died.
Police said they were looking for witnesses and the search for the gunman continued.
They did not give details for a possible motive or the identities of the two victims, who were said to be of a Turkish-Dutch background…
An article from Dutch News provides more details: The deceased were brothers named Ali and Huseyin Torunlar, so the Mohammed Coefficient of the crime is 0%. They were not just Turkish, but Turkish Kurds. And since they operated multiple restaurants, the killing was almost certainly a culture-enriching mob hit:
Netherlands: Two Brothers Shot Dead in Busy McDonalds Restaurant in Zwolle
The two men shot dead inside a busy McDonalds fast food restaurant in Zwolle early on Wednesday evening have been named by the Telegraaf as brothers Ali and Huseyin Torunlar.
The two men, aged 57 and 62, were of Turkish Kurdish origin and ran several grill rooms in Zwolle, the paper said.
The shooting happened at around 6pm when the two men were sitting eating together at a table. Eyewitnesses told the Telegraaf an as yet unidentified man entered the building, ordered food and sat at the table next to his victims. He then opened fire.
Dozens of people, including several children, were in the restaurant at the time and fled when the shooting started, leaving food and toys scattered behind them.
Zwolle mayor Peter Snijders described the shooting as shocking. ‘This was a question of extreme violence in a place where it would not be expected,’ he said. Victim support services have been drafted in to talk to those who witnessed the shooting.
Update: Police said on Thursday morning they had arrested a 32-year-old man who had reported to police in Deventer on Wednesday evening in connection with the shooting.
The mayor described the shooting as shocking.
Get used to it.
Soon such shootings will no longer be shocking.
It is the new normal.
Exactly, welcome new culture!! Outrageous..
Heh! I appreciated your reference to the “Grauniad”.
For readers who are not British, and of a certain (now ripe and mature) vintage, the Guardian was, and remains, Britain’s premier left/centre left broadsheet (ie “serious”) newspaper; it survives because it’s owned by a charitable trust, somewhat like publicly subsidised broadcast media (BBC or CBC?).
In pre-digital days, the Guardian was notorious for its misprints, and originally ( I believe) satirised as the “Grauniad” by the non-partisan satirical magazine “Private Eye”, which has only survived numerous libel suits thanks to the generosity of several supporters, including the late lameted Peter Cook.
I had a subscription to Private Eye while I was living in England, and my girlfriend used to send me copies for a year or two after I left. But after a while it stopped making sense to me — you have to be thoroughly steeped in the local political culture to understand that sort of magazine.
My favorite cover showed a photo of Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret riding in the back of a limo. Her balloon reads: “What’s all this about us rowing in public?” Lord Snowdon’s reply: “Shut up you fat bitch and keep smiling.” Readers of a certain age (of which you are one, Mark) will remember the context and get the joke.
Private Eye was also where I encountered “Barry McKenzie” and learned vulgar Australian slang (which is now more than 50 years out of date). My favorite line (from Barry): “Cripes, I’m so shicker I can’t crack a fat!”
That and the zero coefficient have mean in tears, well played sir.