Riot in Mons: police refrain from going too hard

Several testimonies criticize the intervention of Friday evening at the Herb Market

The party degenerated Friday night in Mons after the victory of the Red Devils. Riots erupted in the Herb Market Square. The police had to evacuate the premises, carrying out about thirty administrative arrests.

But several witnesses criticize the methods employed. " It's when the police pulled out teargas that it degenerated ," said a Montois present on Friday night. " They grabbed bottles of glbad, then the reinforcements arrived and they loaded in. They did not want to understand, they could not talk to them, they did their job, but if it was a mamy 85 years old, they loaded without hesitation. "

Fortunately, no 85-year-old mamy at the Herb Market on Friday night. But a communal councilor Colfontaine who did not understand what was happening to him and reports his misadventure on social networks. Lionel Pistone says he was dancing with friends inside a cafe when the police asked them out. The Colfontainois executed himself, but on leaving, he was gas. Itchy eyes, burning throat, Lionel Pistone still obeys the injunctions when the police, shields and batons in the hand, make back the crowd. Arrived in a perpendicular street, the councilor puts himself on the side to let pbad the police and join his car which was parked on the other side. Lionel Pistone was then flattened on the ground and handcuffed with colsons.

" Neither one nor two, they grabbed me and threw me to the ground, beat me, trampled me and held my hands with colsons.My glbades were even broken by the violence of the gesture ", regrets Lionel Pistone. " I have bruises all over my body, it's horrible, I'm dying badly."

The Colfontainois will spend the night in a cell with 10 other people. " Students, a nurse, a computer scientist and even a doctor … It was not people like that who would have triggered a riot ", continues Lionel Pistone. Not possible to go to the bathroom or to have a blanket. Released the next day in the late morning, the communal councilor had to sign a paper indicating that he was drunk and very upset. " This was absolutely not the case ," says Lionel Pistone.

Did the Mons police go too hard on Friday night? The zone chief defends himself. " One thing is certain, when we decide to evacuate the market because of unrest, it is a public security operation that leaves no room for dialogue ," says Marc Garin. " This is an exceptional situation with exceptional measurements, it was necessary, the badysis of the surveillance images confirmed it, and from these images there is no evidence that the operation was It's my role to scan the entire process and check that there was no abuse, and for the people who were brought back to the police station, I will check beginning of the week that everything was done correctly. "