[Adress]

October 7th, 2002

Police Headquarters
Ufficio Stranieri
Via Genova 2
40015 Rome

Dear Sir/Madam,

We have written this letter in connection with our recent visit to Rome, and how, at the last moment, it was ruined by two police officers. On July 29th, it was our last day in Rome, and we decided we wanted to see some of the nice views in Rome. We were there with four friends, and we had rented a car for the week. We were driving down Avenua Ruvana, at about two o’clock, when we were being held by two police officers on the side of the road, who then told us to step out of the car. We did not have the slightest idea of what could be the reason for this.

At first, we thought it could be because of us driving too fast, but the guy driving the car was certain we were only driving 40 on a road with a 50 speed limit. When we asked the officers what the reason of our ‘arrest’ was, they did not reply. Instead, they looked at us foully and they started searching through our stuff in the car. When one of my friends tried to stop them and tell them he needed some sort of search warrant for it, he got pushed away, almost beaten, and they were threatening to beat him up if he would not let them continue their ‘investigation’, as they called it. We heard them speaking together, using the word ‘drugs’.

The officers just threw our suitcases out of the car, onto the street, and roughly opened them. When we protested against it, they again threatened to ‘beat us up’, as they called it. In my girlfriend’s suitcase were lots of souvenirs she had bought the day before. The officers just threw them on the street, most of them were broken afterwards. Also, the suitcases were heavily damaged.

Without the officers having found drugs or any other illegal things, they went for their car. We tried to stop them, but they pushed us off and drove away. They left us there, in an outer street in a city we did not know, with all of our stuff lying spread on the street. We have not had the time to go down to the police office, because it was already half past four when they had left, and our flight was leaving at a quarter to six.

We are writing to you now to tell you that we can not in any way tolerate this kind of treatment. Not only did they destroy our souvenirs of Rome, they also took our last day of vacation and ruined our vacation as a whole. So we are kindly asking you for a formal excuse, which seems nothing more than reasonable, and we ask you to find the officers that harassed us without apparent reason. Also, we ask that you give us an indemnification of € 250 for damage to our personal belongings. This is not even for ruining our holiday.

We kindly ask that you agree to our demands, but if you do not, we can also arrange this with the Italian embassy, who will probably be very unpleased with things like this. Not only does this damage tourism of Dutch people to Rome, but it can also damage the reputation of the Italian Police Force as a whole. Therefore, we ask you to find these officers with utmost urgency.

We hope to receive message from you shortly.

Yours faithfully,




[Name]