Both the RUG and the Hanze University of Applied Sciences issued a warning on Monday advising people not to walk or bike alone on or near the Zernike campus. But on Tuesday afternoon around lunch time, many of the people near the ACLO were still walking on the Jaagpad alone.
Warning
International relations student Rachel Koehoorn (20) did hear the warning, but it didn’t scare her. ‘We don’t really know what happened’, she says. ‘For all we know these people knew each other and were having a fight.’ Besides, she says, it’s daylight. ‘It feels safer. I might not walk alone once it gets dark. Not because of what happened, though. I wouldn’t walk alone anyway.’
Some people apparently didn’t even see the universities’ warning. ‘I had no idea’, says a RUG employee who’d like to remain anonymous and who spends her lunch break walking along the Jaagpad alone. She isn’t worried. ‘A lot of people are talking about the incident, but I don’t feel like I’m in danger.’
Fastest route
Cycling along the Jaagpad, student David Staar (22) is distracted by the essay he has to hand in tomorrow. ‘I heard about it, but I didn’t realise that the stabbing took place here until you asked me about it just now’, he says. ‘They haven’t caught the guy yet, right? It would be great if they did sometime soon, but I’m not going to be avoiding this place either. It’s still the fastest route to class.’
On Tuesday evening, May 14, an as yet unknown assailant stabbed and killed 27-year-old Hidde Bergman from Midwolda at the Jaagpad near the Zernike campus. Bergman was jogging there when he was attacked.
Tips
The police haven’t commented on the motive for the stabbing. On Sunday, they released a composite sketch of the possible perpetrator. This sketch led to 76 tips on top of the one hundred tips the police had already received.
On Tuesday night, television programme Opsporing Verzocht focused on the stabbing.