French police have detained 12 suspects after 145 people reported being pricked with syringes during the country’s annual street music festival, officials said Sunday.
Millions of people took to the streets across France on Saturday evening for the Fete de la Musique, with authorities reporting “unprecedented crowds” in Paris.
Before the party, posts on social media had called for women to be targeted during the festivities.
Oh cool. We’re doing another needle panic
Britian went through this just three years earlier.
Their experiences were shared on social media, along with photographs of apparent puncture wounds. Groups were formed to warn of the dangers of needle spiking, politicians called for investigations, and by February 2022, over 1,300 reports of needle spiking had been made to police over the previous 6 months (Wynn-Davies, 2022).
…
Many victims claimed they only had a few drinks and were not drunk. However, an Australian study of suspected incidents of drink spiking found that self-reports of alcohol consumption are often unreliable. One 17-year-old girl was taken to hospital after having only one glass of vodka. However, on further questioning, she ‘remembered’ having beer and whisky. The study also analyzed the blood and urine of patients who presented at hospital emergency departments. Of 97 patients, none had traces of a sedative in their systems (Quigley et al., 2009).
Jfc what the fuck
People have different definitions of major incidents apparently…
“including a 17-year-old who was hospitalized after being found sitting on the street with stab wounds to the lower abdomen.”
“The prefect of the Paris police, Laurent Nunez, said that “no major incident has been reported.””
A single person being stabbed isn’t a “major incident” if you’re the chief of police or whatever a prefect is.
Could someone please shoot whoever wrote the headline?
Tangentially, I was chatting with the owner of my local pub in Boston recently, and apparently it’s become something of a game (?!?!?!?!?) to try to slip people mickeys around here. As in, just see if you can sneak it into the drink, with no real intent of abuse or rape or whatever - just to see if you can do it.
I fucking hate humans sometimes.
Is that what they say once they get caught, or do they tell that story just in case they get caught in the future?
“It’s just a prank bro”
No idea. If I caught someone doing it, I wouldn’t talk to them about what their rationale was. I’d throw my beer at them and then yell for the bouncer that some guy was trying to slip shit into drinks.
There are many more dumb assholes than rapists. I believe people who do this just for fun, not for rape, do exist. It’s quite terrible anyway.
What’s a mickey?
Date rape drugs.
It’s much darker than what I thought. For me a mickey is a booger.
Still don’t put that in people’s drinks
Unless they ask for it
A penis.
With two ears
I mean i could see this actually being a good stunt to raise awareness about it. Like use something fake and safe like a time release tablet that makes the drink fizz up suddenly 30 seconds later, or causes the whole thing to turn colour rapidly or something. But i doubt thats whats happening. Might make for a funny party theme with a close group of friends who are all in on it and targeting each other though.
Doesn’t matter how ineffective it might seem, that drink is getting thrown away
People are giving out free drugs to anyone? Oh no! Kudos to this brave person for speaking out with no regard for what that might do to their own business.
…what…?
Just a joke. People rarely give away drugs without expecting something in return. Even on Halloween.
People “give away” date rape drugs all the time.
…expecting sex “in return”.
Tangentially, I was chatting with the owner of my local pub in Boston recently, and apparently it’s become something of a game (?!?!?!?!?) to try to slip people mickeys around here.
In some time periods in some places in the world, getting a hand cut off was punishment for theft. While that is a bit extreme, maybe assholes convicted of this should lose the final knuckle of their pinky finger as punishment for drugging people at bars.
There is a reason civilized countries don’t do punishments like this any more - they don’t work.
Fuck, this was happening when my younger sister was going to bars. It wasn’t a thing I was aware of when I was younger. But I remember my sister saying 15 years ago that people were slipping drugs into drinks for this same reason. It was just to fuck with people
called for women to be targeted during the festivities
Do we know more? Was this supposed to just scare them or did they actually get injected with something?
Super frustrating article to read.
Fucking tell me about it 😂
This is a panic that has come and gone multiple times even just during my lifetime. I remember the first time I heard about it was visitors to neighboring Tijuana with HIV infected blood on the 80s. Never once has it actually been confirmed to have happened.
These are 145 self reports. Nothing confirmed. No video evidence.
This is a real phenomenon, first widely reported in 2022. Due to some reason, it has resurged.
Arrests in France after scores report being attacked with syringes at street music festival
Millions of people took to the streets across France on Saturday evening for the Fête de la Musique, with authorities reporting “unprecedented crowds” in Paris. The feminist influencer Abrège Soeur warned online before the festival that calls had been made on social media for women to be targeted with syringes. It was not certain where such posts would have been made or by whom.
The interior ministry said 145 victims across the country had reported being stabbed with needles during outdoor music events across the country. Paris police reported 13 cases in the capital. Officials did not say if these were cases of so-called needle spiking with date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol or GHB, used by attackers to render victims confused or unconscious and vulnerable to sexual assault. “Some victims were taken to hospital for toxicological tests,” the ministry said.
In Paris, investigations were opened after three people, including a 15-year-old girl and an 18-year-old male, reported being stabbed in separate incidents across Paris, prosecutors said. All three reported feeling unwell. Across France, 12 suspects have been arrested, the interior ministry said. Among them were four people in the south-western city of Angoulême suspected of having targeted about 50 victims, a police source said.
/…/ There was a wave of reports in 2022 about alleged syringe attacks against women and men in clubs, bars, music events and even theatres. The government put out messages at the time for people going out at night to be vigilant and advising them that they should go immediately to the police and also have a toxicology test if they thought they had been drugged by a syringe prick.
Since another person linked to a story about this on Twitter, of all things, I did some background checking. Does not look like a “panic”, but a new genre of crime.
The mayor of the city of Metz, identifiable, writes on social media (Instagram) confirming the occurrence. Confirming that arrests have been made. Other sources (among them old media outlets like the Guardian, see above link) report about it.
Incitement allegedly occurred over social media. It will be investigated where it occurred. Victims have been sent to toxicology. It will be investigated what was injected, if anything. Some victims reported feeling unwell.
Guess: in a crowd, it is relatively easy to anonymously attack someone and hope to leave little evidence. However, this time, it has been claimed that some assailants were detained on the spot. There will be information confirming or denying this pretty soon.
Confirming that arrests have been made.
Very easy for police to grab random people out of a music festival and throw them in jail.
These social panic stories, in which unnamed sources make nonfalsifiable claims that result in some number of uninvestigated allegations and a series of possibly unrelated arrests stinks of Satanic Panic or Razorblades In the Halloween Candy or Haitian Immigrants are Eating Our Dogs, or any number of other news stories built on gossip.
Of course the 145 police reports don’t count. This is 145 women were talking about.
During the 80s example I gave it was men that were reporting it.
Anyone can file a police report. And if they believe they were a victim then they are more likely to do that.
Wait, are you trying to tell us that this is not true because there is no video evidence? Just hundreds of women being in panic? Wtf
I’m saying that in the past every incidence or this has been alleged turned out to be mass panic. And at today’s age of constant video surveillance there would be evidence, not just reports. So either this is the very first case in the world where this is actually true and we will find that out through the evidence or we’re going to find out that it’s not true and then it matches all the previous events. But police reports do not make something real.
I’m asking people to look at the evidence.
Maybe trust the victims first and if there is evidence against it doubt?
Edit: As I dit not write that clear enough: If people are accused of course not just lock them up but if hundreds of people report that they are victims of a crime don’t just call bs.
So guilty until proven innocent? Just lock up random people based on vague memories when drunk?
Did they accuse random people? As far as I understood the articles, they filed reports but did not name suspects. When random people get locked up for this, that’s an issue for sure. I meant that you should not instantly call bs when hundreds of people report something like this.
Havana syndrome was also reported to be a thing by hundreds of people reporting about it.
I am not saying it definitly happened. I just argued that it might be true and I don’t think it’s a good idea to not take such reports serious as many people here stated it is bs before details were public.
“Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”
~ Donald Rumsfeld
145 women speaking up is evidence of this happening
You’re not a scientist aren’t you?
145 people that think something happened isn’t evidence. Every case in the past had lots of people absolutely convinced it happened.
So let’s take this to the next step. There is video surveillance because every venue does these days. They pull the video. They watch the video. They follow the movements of every person. They see who bumped into who. If the video shows one or more people ranging too far to too many people and getting close when there is plenty of space and shows them dumping the evidence then we have actual proof that backs up the claims. Toxicology tests were performed. We find that there is something in the blood that shouldn’t be there.
You and each of the others here that are absolutely convinced that this time is the one time in history that this actually happened get vindicated.
But what if the video doesn’t show it? What if the toxicology is completely normal? Are you going to regret being so absolutely sure? Are you going to come back here and say “okay, I was wrong.”
I’m asking that you wait until the evidence is evaluated to make a decision. Reports aren’t proof. Evidence is proof. And given the history of this type of claim a little proof before judgment is absolutely warranted.
This also happened in France in 2022. People were detained, preliminary charges filed. And then the cases vanished. Not great reports of convictions. No “there is nothing to worry about, the criminals have he brought to justice.”
In this current case they have arrested maybe a dozen. If they are guilty then throw the book at them. But the guilty should come only after the evidence has been evaluated. And a report is not evidence. That’s suspicion.
Generally evidence is needed to arrest someone.
I hope France has a better track record than America for that.
You did not say we should wait for evidence, you just said it’s a panic and there is no evidence.
I said that every case in the past has been a panic. And until we find evidence this isn’t the Bayesian policies apply. Investigate and then figure out if something actually happened.
Last time I heard about this it was all over Facebook and shit.
Then the government, police and drs came out and said there was no evidence and when you think about it it doesn’t make any sense.
Honestly how many women have you seen smash way way too many drinks and claim they got spiked. No you weigh fuck all, you were smashing drinks, thats why you can’t stand. We’ve all drank too much.
The people planning this and walking around doing the pricking…
There’s a classic death metal song by Cannibal Corpse called “Hammer Smashed Face”.
I’m gonna assume it was boys doing the pricking?
EDIT: surprise! It was boys.
Removed by mod
I’m sorry, how does this apply to trans people at all?
When your takeaway from every bad thing that happens is “can i blame exclusively men?” You are already treading very close to that bigoted rhetoric.
That’s a reach.
Either way, sounds like the suspects are boys. Go cry about it.
cry about it
Yeah that’s usually what terfs say when you call them out.
You’re just trying to make people think badly about trans people. I don’t believe you’re being genuine.
Please explain to me how pointing out the perps are men does anything besides fuel bigotry.
What is a policy we would then enact that would effect exclusively men that magically fixes the issue, which would justify the bigotry?
I’m so perplexed by this. Calling somebody a terf in a situation when it doesn’t make any sense to even use the word.
I feel like this is some sort of anti-trans social engineering.
