“Abject messages” on social networks addressed to the widow of the policeman killed during a refusal to comply, an investigation opened

The widow of Eric Comyn, a police officer killed by a repeat offender in Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes) during a road check, is the target of insulting remarks on social networks that have triggered the opening of an investigation, we learned on Tuesday, September 3 from a source close to the investigation.

“The ongoing proceedings concern various despicable messages on social networks targeting the widow but also the police and their relatives”, indicated the Draguignan prosecutor's office,  without further details.

“I am not talking about foreigners but about repeat offenders”

“I state it loud and clear, France killed my husband. (…) France killed my husband through its inadequacy, its laxity and its excess of tolerance", had denounced Harmonie Comyn, the gendarme's widow, on August 28, during a ceremony in Mandelieu-La Napoule, two days after the events.

"Be careful, I'm not talking about foreigners, but about repeat offenders", she had specified, the suspect arrested being of Cape Verdean nationality.

The 39-year-old man who mowed down Warrant Officer Comyn while trying to avoid a traffic stop in Mougins already had 10 convictions on his record and had been arrested twice for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, according to the courts. He was indicted and placed in pre-trial detention.

“Not a ground for judicial impunity”

On Monday, the public prosecutor of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal warned, during his opening speech before his court, that the public prosecutor “would ensure that certain odious, unacceptable remarks made on the sidelines of this tragedy are punished to the fullest extent of the identification of their authors".

"Freedom of expression is not a reason for judicial impunity on social networks" and "cannot be the false nose for the commission of offenses, the propagation of hatred of institutions and those who serve them or their relatives", Franck Rastoul added, without further details.

On Monday, a tribute ceremony was organized for the gendarme in Nice, in the presence of the resigning Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin. “It is not a refusal to comply, it is a crime. It is not a news item, it is a social fact,” the minister had estimated.