Mehdi Bouda
On August 20, 2019, Mehdi Bouda, a 17-year-old kid from Brussels, Belgium, died after an officer hit him with his patrol car. On that day, the police carried out a raid against drugs, and during the pursuit of criminals, they accelerated to a hundred kilometers per hour.
The teenager happened to be in the area where the police conducted their special operation. As soon as Bouda realized that he was in the middle of a police operation, he got scared and started running away. According to law enforcement agencies, the teenager ran out on the road at a red traffic light and did not notice the approaching car, but later it became known that the police officer driving the patrol car exceeded the permissible speed limit by one and a half times, accelerating to 95 kilometers per hour. The boy was hit by a car and was taken to a hospital, where he died of his injuries a few hours later.
The teenager’s family said police only told them about Mehdi’s death the next day, and local media distorted the incident by lying that Bouda was a drug dealer killed in a police operation. The court found that there were no sufficient grounds for initiating a criminal case, but in April 2021, the young man’s family said that they were dissatisfied with the court’s decision and would continue to fight for justice.