Police in Wallonia’s Pays de Herve region have been left embarrassed and amused after mistaking an abandoned mannequin for a dead body, Sudinfo reports.
Police were first contacted by a concerned walker who reported finding a body in the bushes in the Hautes Fagnes, near Baelen. Officers soon arrived at the scene and concurred with the findings of the walkers. From the bush, a seemingly human foot could be seen poking out, covered by a blanket.
The discovery was treated as a potential murder and prompted a large police response: a security perimeter was quickly set up and a crime scene was established.
"[The police] have very clear and precise instructions for crime scenes," said the Verviers divisional prosecutor Gilles de Villers Grand Champ. "They took photos but they can’t check, they can’t touch anything. So they called the magistrate on duty. The magistrate sent the coroner, the only person who can touch the body in this context."
Arriving on scene, the coroner approached the body, lifting the sheet, which led to an amusing discovery: The foot did not belong to a body, but rather a plastic dummy.
The police response had been a waste of time, but local police officers could still see the funny side. The prosecutor joked that the discovery was "quite original" and expressed relief that the discovery was not, in fact, a human being.
"It’s the first time it’s happened to us," the prosecutor told Sudinfo. "We all thought it was a potential homicide. With a blanket and hidden under branches, we didn’t expect a natural death. We certainly didn’t discover a dummy either, and yet…"
