Grandson is in shock. Saturday at the start of the afternoon, when the Brandons’ final preparations were about to be completed, everything changed. Gunshots echo, then gendarmes, submachine guns in hand, evacuate passers-by. “We quickly understood that it was not fun. Everyone was afraid, ”said a witness, then barricaded in a bistro in the square.
Access to the town sealed off by the police of Yverdon and Neuchâtel. Sirens sound everywhere. A Vaud police helicopter. And, in the midst of all this turmoil, the rumor spreading like wildfire: “An attack”; “Four dead”; “An individual allegedly shot people at rue Basse”. Three ambulances and two Rega helicopters quickly evacuated an unknown number of injured. The police refuse to comment on their condition and even on their number, arguing that operations are continuing and that an investigation is under way.
The cantonal police only talk about a major intervention in an apartment in the city center. It does not confirm any of the testimonies of the inhabitants of Grandson, still shaken by the events, some even evoking gunfire in the street. The security forces repeat that “the events occurred in a confined space and that the population was not in danger”, but do not comment on possible men on the run.
And for good reason. A shopkeeper claims to have seen a man with a bloody face wandering around her store. “He got into a car registered in the canton of Zurich and fled.” Another confirms. “I am in shock. Apparently a marginal. The guy chatting with him in the car, however, didn’t seem to be friendly. ” Another car, French, is sometimes cited by locals. The police do not give any information about this man with the bloody face and his mysterious companions.
Several witnesses also claim to have heard deflagrations in the early afternoon from the neighboring commercial area of Chamard, causing uproar on social networks in particular. Police confirm an arrest, but unrelated to the events of Grandson and without any shots.
A curious house
A few hours after the facts, the forensic police, the Sûreté, the canine brigade and onlookers still crisscrossed the city of Othon. As languages gradually loosened over the little house in the center, with windows decorated with a Russian flag and a Soviet flag. It is regularly suspected of harboring one or more dealers. “It is undoubtedly a settling of accounts, assures a neighbor. Since the time we complained … “
“It is not the only sector, there are a few low-rent apartments which are regularly visited by the gendarmerie,” regrets syndic François Payot. As for these inhabitants, we have never had any response. “
Several well-informed sources support the hypothesis of a place of deal. The man domiciled in the apartment where the events took place would be a well-known trafficker in the area. He is said to have acted as an intermediary in a transaction between sellers and buyers of narcotics that went wrong. The police remain on their line and do not let anything appear, “neither denying nor confirming any details”. The investigation opened by the prosecutor was entrusted to the Sûreté.
The Brandons have taken place
Despite the events, Les Z’ôtres Brandons took place normally from 4 p.m. on the Place du Château. “After the doubts linked to the coronavirus, the rain, and now that was complicated,” confided, at the foot of the confetti gun, one of the organizers. The celebration was notably planned in the great hall, under the theme of the robbery and the series “La Casa de Papel”. The Grandson brandons, already in a reduced version this year, are the only ones in the canton – for the moment – to have escaped sanitary measures and the ban on demonstrations by more than 1,000 people, decreed by Bern.
Created: 01.03.2020, 20h38
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