Netherlands: Boy learns of father’s suicide after graphic footage goes viral on Twitter

Dutch police are asking Twitter users to stop posting images of a decapitated man's body. The controversy began after an unidentified man jumped in front of a train, at a station about 11 miles northwest of Amsterdam. The man's suicide occurred as a group of students watched on a platform nearby, BNO News reported. It's not clear if the boys were aware that a suicide was about to occur before it happened. 

But soon afterward, the students  filmed the man's decapitated body and uploaded the graphic footage and images to Twitter. The images later went viral. When Dutch police informed the man's family about his suicide, his son had already seen the grotesque images without realizing that he was looking at his own father, police told BNO.

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On Twitter, Dutch police on Wednesday asked users to stop spreading the images online. "Anyone who has pictures feel obliged to make v. train victim Driehuis, remove the picture immediately, disrespectful and goes too far!," a police officer wrote. 

It's not the first time controversial images of a deceased person have gone viral. In 2006, Los Angeles teenager Nicole Catsouras was killed in a fatal car wreck. After her death, graphic images of her body spread online, and some people even tormented her family members by sending them the images in prank emails. The images were originally leaked by California Highway Patrol dispatchers, leading the agency to agree to pay a $2.37 million settlement to the Catsouras family this year, the Los Angeles Times reported.