Residents of the Walloon municipality of Quiévrain were startled on Tuesday by a car driving at high speed towards the French border, with a veritable police force on their heels. Officers from the Boraine police zone had given chase after a report of a robbery, but the suspects had no intention of simply surrendering. In their mad flight through Hainaut, they even tried to mow down a police officer.
“GTA here in Quiévrain,” reads the caption of one of the many videos of the chase shared on social media. According to the Walloon newspaper l’Avenir, the suspects had committed a robbery in the late afternoon on Tuesday, but were surprised by the officers who had arrived. The robbers jumped into their Alfa Romeo and did not shy away from taking risks to shake off the police. For example, images on social media show how the car hits a police van, swerves and collides with several other vehicles.
“During the chase, they also drove straight at an officer,” says police chief Patrice Degobert, who could provide few details about the robbery and the chase. “Fortunately he was able to jump away just in time and was not hit, but he did sustain knee injuries.” The suspects crossed the border into France, but were chased there by French gendarmes. “The cooperation between the various Belgian police zones and with the French police went smoothly,” says Degobert.
The suspects eventually crossed the border again, but were met by the Belgian police who used a spike mat to stop the vehicle. The suspects were arrested and are charged, among other things, with the robbery, but also with attempted murder. Apart from the police officer who was injured when he jumped away, miraculously no one was injured, it is said.