Famous Crime Reporter Shot on Amsterdam Street

One of the best-known crime reporters in the Netherlands is now a crime victim. Peter R. de Vries, 64, was gunned down on a street in Amsterdam's city center Tuesday evening and has been hospitalized in serious condition, the BBC reports. Witnesses told Dutch media that at least five shots were fired and de Vries was hit in the head. He had been making a live appearance on a current affairs show. "Whatever the circumstances, this is unimaginable and terrible news," Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra told lawmakers.

De Vries has long been known for his reporting on the country's underworld, the AP reports. He hosted a high-profile crime show from 1995 to 2012 and won an International Emmy in 2008 for a show on the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba, a Dutch territory in the Caribbean. In 2019, he said police had told him he was on the hit list of a fugitive criminal, Deutsche Welle reports. (More Netherlands stories.)