We are far from 1is April and his bad taste jokes. This Thursday, December 26, the gendarmerie forces and emergency services were nevertheless confronted with it.
At the beginning of the afternoon, a little girl dialed 17 and described a more than worrying situation: her father, drunk, allegedly shot his ex-wife and his second daughter with a hunting rifle. After injuring them, the latter then took refuge in his home in Saint-Romain-le-Noble, with weapons and another person. A precise address is given by the little girl by telephone. Law enforcement takes this call for help very seriously.
Many fire vans were then mobilized, but also the Smur and, obviously, the gendarmes from the surrounding barracks. A security perimeter is established 400 meters around this house located on Route de Toulouse. Decision was made to cut the departmental road 813, always very busy. The mayor travels to the site. Heavy goods vehicles are blocked until further notice.
The tenant was in Agen
While the Psig uniforms (gendarmerie surveillance and intervention platoons, Editor's note) are carrying out a neighborhood investigation, other gendarmes are monitoring the home and trying to find out more. The flashing lights flood the main road. Onlookers, from the greenway that runs along the canal, wonder and worry. The neighbors commented: “It’s a family tragedy. »
A few hours after the call, the GIGN – intervention group of the national gendarmerie -, requested, arrived on site. They don't find anything around the house. Other investigations followed in neighboring homes. Still nothing.
Around 6 p.m., after several hours spent on site, the gendarmerie's judicial police unit came to the conclusion that it was a hoax. “This call and the situation described justify deploying our elements. We cannot take this information lightly,” explains Gendarmerie Colonel Bétaille. “From the start, we wonder. However, we are deploying. Throughout the investigations into identities and telephony, we understood that all of this was not very coherent. » And the colonel recalled: “These actions are criminally reprehensible. »
The tenants of the house, shaken, were actually in Agen in the afternoon. “The police called us and told us they had received a worrying call. We returned at their request. They waited for us to enter the house,” breathes the occupant of the premises, still in shock this Thursday evening. And they found nothing, in this empty house that afternoon and without incident…
