Published
BielA citizen stains the town hall with his blood
In Orpond (BE), in the Bienne conurbation, the threats of a resident against the municipal administration are “increasingly aggressive”.
A security guard is present when the offices are open to the public.
lematin.ch/Vincent Donzé
The building is the target of a single citizen who stained a wall with blood.
lematin.ch/Vincent Donzé
Threatening emails, two broken windows, three smashed mailboxes and above all, blood on a facade: threats addressed to local authorities are taken very seriously in Orpond (BE), in the suburbs of Biel. The town hall is now monitored by a security guard present in or outside the building, during opening hours.
On display for three months in Bienne, the film “Peter K. alone against the State” recounts the fight of a Biel pensioner against the authorities in 2010. Does Orpond fear a remake? The question makes an employee leaving the town hall at lunch break smile: “No! No! These are precautionary measures,” she said, referring to the presence of the agent.
Identity known
According to the “Bieler Tagblatt”, insecurity nevertheless reigns within the municipal administration. Who is the villager who came out of his crescendo hinges? The authorities know this, since he signed his emails without hiding his address. According to Mayor Oliver Matti, the quarrelsome probably injured himself by breaking two shop windows before Christmas, which obviously led him to put a bloody hand on a wall.
The presence of a security guard posted since last Monday is intended to appease the civil servants, but also to facilitate access to the counters for citizens: the doors are no longer locked as in recent weeks, when each visit was filtered . This method ran counter to the idea of an administration at the service of the citizen.
Ongoing investigation
Why did the disgruntled citizen go off the rails? He disagreed with a decision or performance, but in an official communication issued last Friday, authorities did not detail the reasons for his anger during the ongoing investigation.
“Threats have become more and more aggressive,” City Clerk Stefan Ackermann said. The malcontent was banned from the perimeter. A complaint was filed against him and each incident was reported to the police.
“We take the situation very seriously,” the mayor told “Bieler Tagblatt”. The surveillance of the town hall is the responsibility of the taxpayers, but the Town Council reserves the right to request reimbursement from the author of the threats when he is judged.
