Dutch police were liable for a 2011 mall shooting in which six people were killed as the gunman should never have been granted an gun licence, an appeals court ruled Tuesday. Six people died and 16 were wounded as Van der Vlis fired three weapons, unleashing a hail of automatic gunfire in the packed mall, before turning the gun on himself. A member of a shooting club, the 24-year-old had been given a gun permit in 2008. In a letter to his parents before the attack, Van der Vlis said he was unhappy and wanted to kill himself. The Netherlands was thrown into mourning after Tristan van der Vlis went on a Saturday lunchtime shooting spree in the town of Alphen aan de Rijn in April 2011. Instead, Tuesday's ruling found that police had been negligent in granting Van der Vlis a licence to own guns after his previous application in 2005 had been turned down because he was found to have illegally fired an airgun. It had also emerged that Van der Vlis suffered from psychological problems, dating back to 2006, which should have raised a red flag with police. The appeal court's judgment quashes a 2015 ruling by a lower court which concluded that the police had merely made mistakes in the case. The judges therefore "ordered the police to pay compensation to the families of those killed as well as the wounded", and to pay the court costs of the 51 plaintiffs. The surprise ruling comes as the issue of gun control is high on the global agenda following a series of deadly armed assaults in the United States.
A Dutch court rules police are liable for a mass shooting at a shopping centre that killed six and wounded sixteen because the gunman should not have been issued a firearms licence.