URBAN RODEO. A 9-year-old girl was injured during an urban rodeo on the evening of Wednesday August 24 in Pontoise (Val d’Oise). The motocross driver was arrested and taken into custody.
[Mis à jour le 25 août 2022 à 15h44] An urban rodeo has claimed another victim. It is a 9-year-old girl who was injured by the driver of a two-wheeler who was engaged in wild rodeo in Pontoise, in the Val d’Oise, on the evening of Wednesday August 24. The accident occurred in the Cordeliers district when the 18-year-old was driving at full speed in the street and a car arrived in front. According to the story, the driver was forced to swerve to avoid the vehicle and ran over the girl’s foot as he climbed onto the sidewalk.
The emergency services and the police quickly intervened on the spot around 8:45 p.m. The injured little girl was taken care of and transported to the hospital to undergo an x-ray and medical examinations. Doctors diagnosed a sprain and the child has to walk on crutches for at least two weeks but she was allowed to go home. As for the urban rodeo driver who fled after the accident, he was quickly found and arrested by the police thanks to his vehicle The young man immediately recognized the facts and was taken into custody for involuntary injuries reports The Parisian. The prosecution must rule on the fate of the driver in the coming hours.
A previous urban rodeo accident had already shaken the city of Pontoise in early August. A little girl, this time aged 7, had been knocked down and seriously injured by a two-wheeler. The event had been one of the triggers for the intensification of the fight of the police against urban rodeos, a considerable effort put on the patrols and requested by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.
Urban rodeos, these illegal and dangerous behaviors on public roads have become one of the priorities of the police and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. The member of the government decided, following several accidents, some of which were fatal, to intensify controls against wild rodeos. “As of tomorrow, each police station will carry out at least 3 anti-rodeo operations a day. I will do everything to protect honest people against these offenders”, he tweeted on August 16 insisting on the first wave of intensification of checks on urban rodeos.
The speech on the significant increase in control operations was taken up by Gérald Darmanin on Wednesday August 17 during his trip to Créteil in the Val-de-Marne. The Minister welcomed the arrest of more than 2,200 people and the seizure of 1,800 scooters and motorcycles on urban rodeos since the beginning of 2022. A statement to congratulate the best results compared to the previous year and supported by another statement from the minister: “I asked to intensify these checks. In one week, they have greatly intensified. […] This shows that during the month of August, we are able to respond to the French’s demand for authority”. Gérald Darmanin continued his assessment with figures according to which since August 8, 14,000 forces of the order checked 42,165 people, made 338 arrests and seized 157 vehicles.
A girl seriously injured in an urban rodeo in Pontoise
The first accident in the sad series of dramas linked to urban rodeos is the one that injured a 7-year-old girl in Pontoise on August 5. The young girl named Kenya spent ten days in a coma before waking up on Monday August 16. If his life is no longer in danger, the child risks having serious consequences. Bennérose, the mother of the little girl announced through her lawyer that she wanted to file a complaint against the State for inaction according to BFM TV.
When she was mowed down by a biker riding an urban rodeo, the little girl was playing with another child in her residential neighborhood. Bennérose says she has seen urban rodeos again at the place of her daughter’s accident since the tragedy: “When I get out of work, I see them doing that all the time. Where they knocked down my daughter, it’s not not a place to do that. It’s up to the police to do their job.”
An Afghan dead in Colmar after an urban rodeo
On August 15, west of Colmar, a 27-year-old Afghan boy was shot dead on the sidelines of an urban rodeo. According to the account of the facts, the young man was with a group of friends in the street when a scooter driver who was engaged in urban rodeo passed in front of them. Summoned to stop because of the noise pollution, the driver left for a few moments and returned armed to the group to open fire, mortally wounding the victim.
An urban rodeo driver died in Marseille
Another accident occurred in Marseille on the evening of Tuesday August 16 around 9:30 p.m. It was a 19-year-old young man who practiced urban rodeo on a large engine who killed himself on a motorcycle in the 11th arrondissement of Marseille, according to Provence. The man who was wearing a helmet lost control of his 650cc motorcycle and violently hit a pole. He succumbed to his injuries in the evening.