Reporter Known For Investigating Gangsters, Drug Lords Shot While Leaving TV Station In Amsterdam

A Dutch investigative reporter, who has spent his career covering the criminal underground, is in the hospital after being shot Tuesday while leaving a TV studio in Amsterdam, BBC News reported.

Peter R. de Vries, who has covered high profile cases like the kidnapping of beer magnate Freddy Heineken in 1983, was shot just after 7:30 p.m. after appearing on a chat show. Five close range shots were fired, with de Vries being hit in the head, according to BBC News.

The reporter is known to take up cold cases, especially when they involved children or teenagers, and won an Emmy Award in 2005 about Natalee Holloway, a U.S. teenager who went missing in Aruba. He also frequently functions as a spokesperson for witnesses in police or court cases, and had been acting as an adviser to a former gang member testifying against a drug lord.

Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries talks 31 January 2008 in Hilversum to Beth Twitty, the mother of Natalee Holloway, who disappeared during a holiday on Aruba in May 2005. (Photo credit should read MARCEL ANTONISSE/AFP via Getty Images)

Officials have said de Vries is fighting for his life. His son, Royce, said it was his family’s “worst nightmare come true,” BBC News reported.

He noted they were all getting “enormous support” from messages of solidarity, with flowers, candle and messages placed as tributes at the scene of the shooting.

Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte called de Vries a “courageous journalist” and the shooting “shocking and incomprehensible.” King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima said they were “deeply shocked” and that “journalists must be free to carry out their important work without threats,” according to BBC News. (RELATED: 20-Year-Old Summer Intern Dies After Getting Struck By Stray Bullet On Chicago Subway)

The International Federation of Journalists labeled the shooting “another tragic blow to press freedom in Europe,” while European Parliament President David-Maria Sassoli said “attacks against journalists are attacks against all of us,” BBC News reported.

Dutch police said two men, one Dutch and the other Polish, are continuing to be held in connection with the shooting, while a third suspect, who is 18-years-old, will be released, according to BBC News.

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