Eric Zemmour, the president of the Reconquest party, spoke on Sunday April 23 on BFMTV of the indictment of a police officer on Friday, suspected of having knocked down and injured three teenagers on a scooter with his car after refusing to comply.
>> Minors hit by scooter in Paris: what we know about the investigation after the indictment of one of the police
At the question “Was that a reason to hit them to challenge them?”, he answers “Yes”, adding: “I’m in favor of what the English have been doing for a few months, what they call tactical contact. You know urban rodeo, it’s very dangerous. […] En England, this kind of activity has drastically decreased”.
Minors hit in Paris: for Éric Zemmour (@ZemmourEric), “yes”, you had to hit the scooter pic.twitter.com/P9g0Nw0wC5
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) April 23, 2023
The English police have the right to hit the scooters, but under certain conditions
Eric Zemmour is telling the truth: in London, since 2017, police officers from the Scorpion unit have the right to stamp or hit two-wheelers with their car in certain cases. The goal is to pin them down, then knock them down at low speed. Suspects end up either on the hood or on the ground, which then makes it easier to arrest them.
#WATCH | Earlier this week a man was arrested after he put lives at risk riding a stolen motorbike recklessly through #WoodGreen
Officers in pursuit swiftly brought it to a safe conclusion using tactical contact
On Thursday, the man pleaded guilty https://t.co/X9SbC2vtZF pic.twitter.com/YbiQiQbNUq
—Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) February 8, 2020
The police have the right to use this technique, even when the drivers do not have a helmet. And since 2018, police in other cities in England have been allowed to do so.
A technique not designed to stop urban rodeos
But Eric Zemmour makes a big shortcut by associating this technique with the fight against the urban rodeo. In reality, the “tactical contact” was established to regulate a very specific phenomenon in London: that of snatching on motorcycles. In 2017, there were thousands of cases in the city. And this “tactical contact” is not automatic.
According to the rules, the offense must be serious enough to use this technique. In addition, the police officer who drives must have received specific training, and he must also have the green light from his superior before overturning a two-wheeler, recalls the police of the police. Because this technique is obviously not without risks: between 2017 and 2019, five suspects were injured out of a few hundred interventions: fractures in the arms, legs or face.
Between 2017 and 2018, there was a 36% drop in this type of offence. But difficult to say if it is only thanks to this famous “tactical contact”: several measures were launched at the same time against snatching. There was also the invisible spray which makes it possible to identify the scooters or the spikes to be triggered to puncture the tires of the two-wheelers.