After his placement in custodythe author policeman deadly shooting Wednesday on a motorist in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) was indicted for “willful violence with a weapon causing death without intention to give it” and placed under judicial supervision with a ban on carrying a weapon this Friday, learns Le Parisien from the public prosecutor of Nice. The investigating judge opted for a lighter criminal qualification than that required by the prosecution a little earlier in the day, namely “intentional homicide”.
“A judicial investigation is opened today on this count to determine, in a contradictory manner and under the authority of an examining magistrate, the exact circumstances of the shooting which led to the death of the driver in the vehicle”, thus indicated Xavier Bonhomme, Nice prosecutor, in a press release. The prosecution had also requested that the police officer be placed under judicial supervision.
The 23-year-old police officer and assistant in a road safety brigade, was taken into custody on Wednesday evening at the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) after a fatal shooting which occurred around 4:30 p.m. in the west of Nice. The man targeted by the shot was traveling without a license in a stolen vehicle with a friend in the passenger seat.
A controversial video
According to the Departmental Directorate of Public Security (DDSP), the police had signaled to the driver of the vehicle “zigzagging dangerously” to follow them, but the latter had accelerated. The driver had refused to stop to submit to a traffic check, had fled on an avenue in Nice, then had turned around on the public road and hit the police vehicle which had chased him, detailed a previous press release from the public prosecutor.
The 24-year-old driver of the vehicle died on the spot “after an attempt by the firefighters to revive him”, continues Xavier Bonhomme. For the relatives of the victim, “it is obvious that we have (case) a homicide, there is no discussion on it”, declared Thursday one of their lawyers, Me Sefen Guez Guez, who represents the victim alongside Me Ouadie Elhamamouchi.
VIDEO. Fatal shooting in Nice after a refusal to comply: the police officer in custody
According to videos posted Thursday on social networks, the driver, blocked by a police car in front, had reversed before trying to disengage and restart. But he was again blocked by the police car in front. It was at this moment that the police officer, gun in hand and standing near the vehicle, fired through the driver’s side window.
The passenger also prosecuted
Asked about these videos Thursday on Franceinfo, the director general of the national police, Frédéric Veaux, estimated that “in a case like this, it is the whole of the action which must be analyzed. What happened before, in the environment. The perception that the police may have had at the time of the intervention”.
Two investigations had been opened in this file: a first, entrusted to the Departmental Security, for attempted homicide on a person holding public authority, a second, by the IGPN, the police force, for intentional homicide by the policeman, shooter.
The 26-year-old passenger in the vehicle was also presented to justice on Friday “with a view to his indictment for concealment of aggravated theft” after being in police custody for “attempted homicide on a person holding the public authority, concealment of theft and refusal to comply”. The prosecution requested his placement in pre-trial detention, “to guarantee his continued availability to justice”.