Woman Arrested Following That Massive Crash at the Tour de France

French police have arrested a woman in connection with a spectacularly bad crash during the Tour de France’s opening stages last weekend.

Dozens of riders spilled to the floor when a woman waving a large sign in French and German that referenced grandparents knocked down German cyclist Tony Martin.

Several riders were injured, including France’s Cyril Lemoine, who suffered four broken ribs and a collapsed lung.

“The woman has been formally identified and she was taken into custody a few minutes ago,” a source told the AFP news agency after the state prosecutor for the city of Brest in Normandy, Camille Miansoni, said, “A suspect is in custody.”

Police had earlier appealed for information to help locate the woman, who they wanted to charge with violating safety regulations.

According to French radio RTL and AFP, police finally identified a suspect as a resident of the village of Landerneau in Brittany and made an arrest following a tip.

In an interview prior to the arrest, a French counter-terrorism official refused to say what technology the French state was using to identify the culprit, who evaded the authorities for days.

“If someone is identified under the French legal system as facing charges or investigation they will be detained,” said a French counter-terrorism official, who refused to be named, citing operational security. “My understanding from the media reports is that this woman could face liability from the organisers of the Tour for her improper behaviour.”

The source declined to discuss if the French law enforcement or intelligence services had attempted to identify the woman using facial recognition software that has been employed in the past to identify suspected extremists from hostage videos. 

“I’m not going to discuss those capabilities,” said the official.