What happened between midnight and 3:30 am on January 26 in the life of Constable M.? It’s the big black hole. And this is the question that the police officers of the 9th arrondissement police station in charge of the investigations by the Paris prosecutor’s office are trying to answer. The investigation opened a week ago, on January 27, for “robbery with violence resulting in total incapacity for work (ITT) not exceeding 8 days”, with suspicion of a harmful substance, transmitted to the public prosecutor, is still ongoing.
On Thursday, January 26, M., a 25-year-old policeman, was off duty. He goes to have drinks in two Irish pubs in the Grands Boulevards district (II). In the first pub, the young soldier is accompanied by five friends, all gendarmes in civilian clothes and off duty. In the second pub, they are only two. The rest of the evening is nebulous.
“I don’t remember leaving that bar,” says the victim. But what is certain is that M. woke up on a bed in the Lariboisière hospital (Xe), not far from his barracks. He suffers from severe headaches and pain in his right hip. CT scan confirms head trauma. The young man also finds that he has been robbed: his credit card and his telephone have disappeared. However, both were quite inaccessible: his phone was in “the right pocket of (his) pants”. His bank card “in the pocket at the front of (his) jacket”.
Many gray areas
At what time of the evening did the events occur? Or exactly ? How and above all, by whom were they committed? Was there a violent altercation on the way back to the Parisian barracks of the Republican Guard, Faubourg des Poissonniers (Xe), where the young gendarme resides?
M. tried to rewind the evening. To the investigators, he explained “having consumed alcohol but not to the point of remembering anything”. M. thinks he “consumed a harmful substance” without his knowledge. “I may have been drugged,” he said.
His friends who “didn’t notice anything”, returned before him, around 2 am. ” The question is Was he identified in the bar, with his plainclothes gendarme buddies, as a soldier ? asks a source familiar with the matter. M., who was dressed in white shoes, white sweater, white jacket, thinks not. So what happened on the way back to the barracks?
The owner of the second bar “very vigilant” against GHB
This Thursday, the owner of the second pub, contacted, had no memory of M. and his friends. The book of the daybooks of the establishment included this night no incident of the kind and the manager did not have the visit of police officers. In passing, he deplores “the excessive consumption of alcohol by young soldiers in general, who let go. And fights that ensue at night in the neighborhood”.
The boss says he is “very vigilant” about the GHB problem. “We have security guards to watch over our customers, informative posters. We provide lids to put on the glasses,” he insists.
GHB, “rape drug”, however remains a worrying scourge in Parisian bars and throughout France, In November 2021, the hashtag #Balancetonbar had flourished on social networks and gathered many stories of assaults and GHB poisoning. The Paris prosecutor’s office then decided to react and the Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, announced the opening of an investigation. In particular on sexual violence linked to the surroundings of night establishments in the capital.
Contacted this Thursday evening, the gendarmerie indicated that it did not want to comment.