The number of Yellow Vest demonstrators seriously injured by French police flash-balls increases with every weekend rally. Police sometimes aim directly at the protesters’ heads, which is against regulations. The loss of an eye seems to be a not infrequent consequence of such head shots.
The following report from France interviews two victims of flash-balls. Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
| 00:00 | [banner] Stop police violence | |
| 00:04 | December 1, 2018 | |
| 00:08 | January 12, 2019 | |
| 00:16 | Liscia Reporter: Yellow Vests: the Tragedy of ‘Broken Muzzles’. | |
| 00:20 | I’m in front of the Pitié-Sâlpetrière Hospital in Paris. I have an appointment | |
| 00:24 | with Frank, 20 years old, the victim of a flash-ball shot during a rally | |
| 00:28 | on December 1. | |
| 00:32 | Hi Frank — Good day. — You’re coming from a medical appointment? — Yes. | |
| 00:36 | How did it go? — It’s very unlikely that I’ll regain my sight in [that] eye. | |
| 00:40 | Could you tell me about the day when you were rallying on the Champs-Elysées? —So I was on | |
| 00:44 | the Champs-Elysées on December 1, 2018. I went | |
| 00:48 | to pick up my mother to reassure her; and at the point when I turned my head | |
| 00:52 | to the left, I got hit by a flash-ball bullet straight in the head from the left side, | |
| 00:57 | right in my eye. | |
| 01:01 | At night I have a hard time falling asleep, because when I start to close my eyes, I have flashbacks. | |
| 01:05 | I see the event again. | |
| 01:09 | Hundreds of people, wounded like Frank, exist in France. | |
| 01:13 | I’m heading to Bordeaux, where I’m going to meet another victim of a flash-ball shooting. | |
| 01:21 | We’re at Victor Hugo Path. Exactly here you were hit by a flash-ball shot. The atmosphere | |
| 01:25 | of the rally, before it degenerated, it was…? —Oh, it was festive, you had | |
| 01:29 | drums, old people, young people, everybody laughed; no, no, it was | |
| 01:33 | the enthusiasm like during the World Cup. And all of a sudden, suddenly, | |
| 01:37 | smoke grenades were raining on us; flash-balls were flying | |
| 01:42 | past us. So we tried to flee through small lanes, but the only | |
| 01:46 | problem there were squadrons of the CRS [riot police]. The moment we arrived they were watching us, | |
| 01:50 | and on the way back we had flash-balls shot at us. So, while waiting for things to calm down | |
| 01:54 | we decided to hide at the bus stop, with my wife; and when I turned | |
| 01:58 | to look where they were, really, that I saw one | |
| 02:02 | who was very close, 5-7 meters [16-23 feet], I don’t know, and that’s when he shot at me. | |
| 02:06 | And then I don’t remember. —When you regained consciousness, you were in the hospital ? | |
| 02:10 | Yes, I was in the hospital. Yes. I woke up and I didn’t even know where I was, | |
| 02:14 | I was attached [to medical devices] everywhere, and there I heard, well, | |
| 02:18 | I was in a lot of pain, and I heard a door opening, I turned my head, and I saw my wife | |
| 02:22 | arriving, crying. And it hurts me, because, voilà, I’m re-living it now, and she | |
| 02:26 | arrived crying, and she said, “But honey, you don’t have your eye anymore, you have nothing now.” | |
| 02:31 | I asked what happened, and she said, “Well, they shot you, they shot you | |
| 02:35 | with a flash-ball”. | |
| 02:39 | I looked at myself in the mirror once, and haven’t done so ever since. | |
| 02:43 | I cannot stand seeing myself. I have blood in my eye, I’m disfigured here, | |
| 02:47 | I have no eye any more. I can’t. I can’t look at myself. | |
| 02:51 | When I hear you, I’m under impression that your life stopped completely. | |
| 02:55 | For now it’s at stand-by, yes. Now I feel anger. Anger and hatred. | |
| 02:59 | And I don’t know how to express it. Because it’s boiling inside me and | |
| 03:03 | I’m barely halfway through my life. But my life has been destroyed. | |
| 03:07 | It’s destroyed. |
Ah yes, the anger and hatred.
https://twitter.com/HarryTheOwl/status/1088144877739749376
Anti-Christ is active. Loss of right and wrong. No honor no conscience.
Martyrs!
Things cannot be straightened by peaceful means and logic, unfortunately.
Things will evolve to a point that everyone will realize that unless we offer ourselves as martyrs others (our flesh and blood) will not live in relative peace.
Martyrs perished to turn Europe into Christianity. We need that again. This time Christians and Jews must pray together so as God may hear our prayer. Jews are the trunk we are the bough.
My recent visit to England and Denmark left me stunned and shocked.
Can British policemen disobey their superiors and not oppress their own compatriots. They can’t, you say.
Say that to: Lord Justice Colonel Sir Geoffrey Lawrence.
Martyrs.
Funny how they can’t get the “hoods” (banlieus) under “control” using the same vicious “methods”, isn’t it?
My heart goes out to this guy.
Yes, isn’t it strange how a disproportionate application of state power is applied in this case?
There is no soft landing from the societal stresses we are witnessing. None.
Equally strange is the almost complete lack of accurate reporting of these things by the MSM.
Yes, odd isn’t it? I recall the peaceful pro-rural life Countryside march in London being attacked by the police who left a good few heads cracked, and compare it to the softly-softly approach that the police have towards threatening aggressive violent minority protests.
I look forward to seeing Macron swinging from a lamp post for all of the grief that this self worshiping, self adulating, moron has inflicted on the people of France. It’s absolutely a tragedy that people demonstrating against a contentious government are maimed and destroyed. What a legacy Macron is weaving.
Some heros are born, some are created by the police violence of the state.
“Some men are discovered, others are found out .”
— Attributed to Napoleon
With Micron flaccidly in the latter category. Then again, who do a bunch of commie Socialists elect as their leader; AN INVESTMENT BANKER?!?
What were they thinking? (As if actual thought had anything to do with it.) Giving away the farm is always so much easier than taking it back … as the Yellow Vests are learning—much to their dismay.
The mask is fallen. Until now the ruthless dictatorship in France, as elsewhere in the West, pretended to be a democracy and ruled mostly by persuasion, reluctant to use open violence. Now, the dictatorship has come into open. It no longer has any qualms about beating and crippling its recalcitrant subjects.
The persecution of AfD in Germany is a similar thing. I am sure, there will be no shortage of such unambiguous examples all over Europe.
Let us wake up to the fact. The globalist elite has sucked all life from Western democracy and his in its empty shell for a time. Today, it is crawling out of the shell. The time of unashamed, cruel and violent totalitarianism has come. Those who cannot reconcile themselves with it, get ready for all forms of persecution – from ‘naming and shaming’ to actual torture and death.
And here is what a Macron-Flash-Ball looks like from close up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBk4S6Xdl3Q
That appears to be what American military and LEO call a “flashbang” – which can be quite destructive. There is a better alternative:
http://www.bluesheepdog.com/2012/03/13/delta-light-ball-flashbang-alternative/
Macron needs to be very careful. Anymore of this and he’ll have a real revolution on his hands.
One would think the “authorities” would know better than to use methods that will completely alienate them from the populace (as if that hasn’t already happened). Why engage in actions that will make you an enemy of the people? The People are many, you are the few. Consider that.
“The People are many, you are the few. Consider that.”
And the Muslims are even fewer. Yet, with total impunity, their yodeling droves block the boulevards and there’s nary a poke in the eye with a burnt stick.
Yes, yes, I know. It’s all fun and games until somebody’s eye gets poked out. And then, it’s like … Hey! Free eyeball!
I would advise anyone in French law enforcement to read up on how AVH officers were treated by angry mobs during the Hungarian Revolution of ’56.
It was not pretty.