Three months suspended prison sentence for a police officer sentenced for having opened fire without warning on the occupants of a car in the Bois de Boulogne in April 2019. Alexis B. was sentenced on Tuesday by the Paris Criminal Court.
The facts took place on the night of April 29 to 30, when three cars from the anti-crime brigade (BAC) intercepted a car occupied by six men aged 16 to 22 whom they suspected of stealing a handbag. .
The police wearing no identification sign (neither armband nor flashing light on the vehicle), the occupants of the car claim to have believed they were the victims of a robbery and the driver had reversed to try to flee, hitting one of the unmarked police vehicles backing up. One of the officials, Alexis B., then fired twice without warning at the vehicle.
“There are six of us who almost lost our lives”
“I thought I was going to die,” one of the passengers, then 16, told court on Tuesday. “I still hear people say ‘nothing serious happened’, it’s hard to hear, there are six of us who almost lost our lives”, testified the driver.
Called to the bar and confronted with video surveillance images of the arrest, the policeman described his act as “an instinctive response shot”. “I think I did the best to protect my colleagues. If the situation had degenerated or if anything serious had happened, I would have blamed myself all my life”, he justified by reaffirming his certainty of having acted in a state of self-defense. . “The fact of not having put on my armband is an error on my part, it is undeniable”, however conceded Alexis B.
The reaction of the police officer deemed disproportionate
The public prosecutor considered that the policeman’s action was due to “particularly poor control of the situation that happened that evening” and required three months in prison, suspended without a professional ban. In delivering her judgment, the president of the court ruled out self-defense by considering the police officer’s reaction disproportionate to the threat and unjustified.
The agent, 28 years old at the time of the events, was a member of the BAC of Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) and has continued to perform his duties as a police officer since the incident.
Prosecuted for violence and degradation, the driver of the targeted car had been released by the court in November 2020.