He threatened to kill his wife, whom he held hostage with the couple's daughter, claimed to have an explosive belt and even said he was part of Daesh.
Just that.
The man who called the police late Wednesday afternoon making such remarks said he was entrenched in the family apartment in Courbevoie, in the Charras district.
Obviously, the police deployed in numbers and in force.
But the hostage-taking turned out to be a "swatting", an operation aimed at moving the police for nothing.
The police quickly doubted, because when they called back the number of the "hostage taker", their interlocutor, who was in the provinces, seemed to understand nothing.
“We have usurped his identity”, sums up a person close to the case.
Nevertheless taking all precautions, the police went up to the apartment on the 6th floor, of a building on Avenue du Parc, where the hostages were allegedly being held.
But inside, there was only the couple's child, a 13-year-old girl, not threatened by anyone.
But flabbergasted to have seen the police arrive at her home.
The flabbergasted neighborhood
“I was alone when it happened, she says in an even voice and looking a little elsewhere.
I heard noise in the corridor, I saw eight armed policemen.
I opened the door and there were flashes.
They told me to lie down, show my hands, ”says the young girl, shortly after the lifting of the security device.
“They took me away in a fire truck,” she told a young neighbor who came to hear from her.
Outside, residents waited two hours before being able to reach their apartments.
Some, who simply left to buy a loaf of bread before the police arrived on the spot, were unable to return home.
In the meantime, the security perimeter prevented access.
Even access to garages has been blocked.
At the foot of the buildings, the conversations were then centered on the thesis of the "madman", arousing a mixture of emotion and fatalism.
Residents waited two hours before returning to their apartments.
But around 8:25 p.m., the device lifted for a few minutes, learning that it was a hoax stunned the inhabitants.
" It's a crazy thing.
There was such a police deployment of guys dressed in robocops and hyper armed.
In addition, the whole neighborhood was cordoned off.
It's a crazy thing”, repeats Pierre, leaning against a barrier.
“You really have to blame someone for doing that, analyzes a neighbor.
They were lucky the police didn't break down their door.
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The prosecution has opened an investigation for “denunciation of an imaginary crime”, aimed at identifying the author of the “hoax”.
Such a scenario had also mobilized the police in Suresnes last April.
