Mentally Ill Mujahid in Sarcelles

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Sarcelles is a culturally enriched suburb to the north of Paris. The following report from French TV describes an attack in Sarcelles by a mentally ill Algerian culture-enricher, who had absconded from the loony bin and has now been arrested and returned there. The perpetrator can’t be brought to justice because he’s a loony, and the victim in the attack has no recourse — complaints to the police and the hospital have proved fruitless.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:00   …that shake us up every time, Lola’s case, the Nancy massacre, the murder of Alban Gervaise,
00:05   or even Sarah Limy, all these crimes have been committed by unbalanced people,
00:09   to believe that the government is not able to face this new wave of insecurity.
00:13   So you’re going to tell about something that took place a few days ago,
00:17   and that shows, in a fairly emblematic way, all the flaws of our system today.
00:22   Yes, absolutely, Nelly. You talked about several emblematic and, alas, dramatic cases.
00:26   We could have added the one in Bordeaux, of this little girl with her grandmother at the doorstep,
00:30   and all these less serious assaults, which we don’t talk about.
00:33   That’s why I wanted to talk to you about this case. So this case happened in Sarcelles
00:36   on Monday, July 17, around 6:30pm, on the borders of the great synagogue of Sarcelles.
00:42   There was a man, obviously unbalanced, who gratuitously attacked several passersby.
00:46   He first insulted a mother,
00:49   then he rushed towards a young woman from behind to kick her in the back.
00:54   Passersby fortunately intervened, and were able to immobilize the individual
00:57   while waiting for the police. We were also able to contact one of these passersby who intervened.
01:02   I suggest we listen to his testimony. —It’s totally something gratuitous.
01:06   The girls were walking like anyone else in the street.
01:10   And, surprise, she is hit in the back. She doesn’t even see the blow coming.
01:14   She doesn’t even think for a second about what could happen to her. I said, “This one’s crazy.
01:18   He’s hitting a woman.” So I ran. I caught him directly.
01:23   I hit him once, then I saw that he was not in a normal state.
01:26   I said, “It’s useless to hit him.” And then we waited for the police to arrive.
01:33   They managed to arrest the man. Can we learn a little more about the reasons for this gesture?
01:38   They managed to arrest him. We also have images of his arrest, you will see,
01:41   in the middle of the crowd. So, due to the proximity, the police arrived on site.
01:45   And due to its proximity to the great synagogue of Sarcelles,
01:49   the police considered an anti-Semitic motive, at first. But the witnesses say
01:52   that no anti-Semitic insult was made.
01:55   And so this trail was discarded. So, as for his profile,
01:58   the arrested man refused to disclose his identity.
02:01   He didn’t have any papers on him. But the police were able to find out his identity
02:05   at the police station. He’s a 26-year-old man, of Algerian nationality,
02:08   admitted to the psychiatric unit of the hospital of Gonesse.
02:11   And who had been the subject of a search warrant for several months
02:15   for not returning to the psychiatric unit after a one-day furlough.
02:19   So the reasons for his action are unexplained.
02:22   Which did not prevent the victim, Jennifer — that’s what we’re going to call her —
02:26   from filing a complaint. Especially since she explained to us that she was still suffering.
02:30   She had many cervical pains after this assault.
02:33   And then what happened? How do you deal with
02:36   these kinds of cases involving visibly unbalanced people?
02:39   So for the rest, the best thing is to listen to Jennifer,
02:42   who agreed to testify and who tells how her complaint was handled.
02:46   And the feeling of frustration that she still has today; listen to her.
02:50   I went to the police station, I wanted to tell them the story.
02:53   I filed a complaint against this gentleman.
02:56   So they told me that it was useless, that I was wasting my time.
03:00   Simply because he would be declared insane. So anyway, there would be nothing against him.
03:07   So I tried to make them understand that it wasn’t normal.
03:11   It wasn’t normal, even the hospital. The hospital, too, is to blame.
03:15   The hospital is negligent, as well. I also tried to file a complaint against the hospital.
03:18   They told me the same thing, that it was useless, that I was wasting my time.
03:21   This person will not be held accountable for anything. So it’s a situation that can happen again.
03:25   There, it was a kick, but in fact, I keep telling myself that it could have been a stab wound.
03:30   Since a person like that, who is considered dangerous,
03:33   who has a psychiatric condition, well, doesn’t control himself. We don’t know what he might do.
03:37   So you’ll understand, the police have advised Jennifer not to file a complaint.
03:41   Because, since this man was probably insane, he would very likely be found criminally not liable.
03:46   So we could interpret the police behavior in two ways:
03:49   Either the police were simply lazy and therefore they didn’t file a complaint.
03:53   Or the police themselves no longer trust the justice system. And they said to themselves
03:57   that it was useless to file this complaint. In any case, it’s not ethical.
04:00   And Jennifer, moreover, filed a complaint against the hospital, anyway. To at least say
04:03   that someone had to be held accountable. But what a law firm told us,
04:06   more precisely a prosecutor, is that this kind of complaint against a hospital, a public facility,
04:10   has very little chance of being settled. And on top of that, well, at the end of his 24-hour watch,
04:14   this man was released,
04:17   well, he was sent back to his psychiatric unit. And there is no prosecution against him,
04:20   since the prosecutor has decided to classify the lawsuit under ground 36.
04:24   But ground 36 means that ultimately, there is a procedural error. So we can’t file a prosecution.
04:28   So basically, no one is responsible for what happened to this young woman.
04:31   Well, that’s pretty much the same feeling the victim has, and the problem is that this victim
04:36   has the impression that you can’t get justice.
04:39   It is very difficult for the victims to live with this feeling.
04:42   And that feeling of knowing that insecurity gains momentum,
04:45   and that the government, the police and the justice system can do nothing about it.
04:48   I suggest you listen to this last excerpt from her testimony.
04:52   It’s even more difficult today to say
04:55   that we can attack each other like that, gratuitously, by surprise.
04:58   Especially in a public place, in fact, in the middle of the day. Especially since it’s not
05:03   my first assault. In fact, it’s the second time I’ve been assaulted in this city.
05:07   For the moment, in any case, I’m not taking public transport anymore.
05:11   I leave my house, go to my classes or whatever, either with my friend,
05:15   or I call my mother, or I call my husband. But I’m not alone. Then I left Sarcelles.
05:19   I was there, that day, because I had just got married, so I was staying
05:23   at my mother’s in Sarcelles with my husband. And so we left the next day.
05:27   We packed our bags the very same evening and we left the city.
05:31   So we are looking for places that are a little bit safer,
05:34   where I would feel more reassured, even if assaults take place everywhere.
05:38   Ludovic Thoreau, so, and you—
05:45    

4 thoughts on “Mentally Ill Mujahid in Sarcelles”

  2. Thus all Muslims are insane if they do something criminal. No punishment allowed.

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