Since her speech during the tribute to her husband, the widow of Eric Comyn, the police officer killed by a hit-and-run driver during a road check, has been facing insulting messages from anonymous people on social media.
A week after the military tribute paid to her husband, Eric Comyn, a police officer killed in Mougin by a motorist after refusing a road check, Harmonie Comyn is the target of hateful comments on social networks which have led to the opening of an investigation for cyberbullying.
On Wednesday, August 28, two days after the tragic death of her husband, the gendarme’s widow made remarks that still resonate in people’s minds. “I say it loud and clear, France killed my husband! […] “France killed my husband through its inadequacy, its laxity and its excess of tolerance,” declared Harmonie Comyn, during a ceremony in the commune of Mandelieu-La Napoule where the police officer was stationed. “Be careful, I’m not talking about foreigners, but about repeat offenders,” she added.
On August 26, a driver of Cape Verdean origin mowed down Eric Comyn while trying to evade a traffic stop, the policeman eventually died from his injuries. The 39-year-old man was still driving despite several arrests for drunk driving or driving under the influence of drugs, and a dozen convictions on his criminal record. The heartfelt cry of the policeman’s widow, addressed to everyone, immediately caused a reaction on social networks. Internet users targeted her mainly because of a sentence: “1981 should never have existed”, in reference to the date of the abolition of the death penalty.
Messages of unheard-of violence
Since then, Harmonie Comyn has been subjected to the wrath of many Internet users, who, under the cover of anonymity, have been posting “abject messages” to the mother. On social networks, insulting and hateful remarks are multiplying. Sentences such as: “I hope that this sow dies too”, “No pity, let her join him…”, are posted under the videos of her speech. Some call her a fascist and hammer home the message “ACAB” from the American “All Cops Are Bastards”.
Faced with this, the justice system was contacted and an investigation for cyberbullying was opened. On Monday, on the sidelines of a tribute ceremony organized for the gendarme, in the presence of the resigning Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, the attorney general of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, Franck Rastoul, indicated that he would “ensure that certain odious, unacceptable remarks made on the sidelines of this tragedy are punished to the full 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”, he added.