The driver of the car whose vital prognosis was engaged after police fire during a check in Vénissieux (Rhône) Thursday evening died Friday “late evening”, announced this Saturday the Lyon prosecutor’s office.
He had been hospitalized, while the passenger had been killed on the spot during this check where, according to the prosecution, the two police officers would have acted in “self-defense”, during a check of a car reported stolen near Lyon . Friday evening, the prosecution announced the lifting of the police custody of the two police officers.
Judicial information opened
“As part of the investigation entrusted to the IGPN and opened into the heads of voluntary violence by persons holding public authority which resulted in death without the intention of giving it, the police custody of the two police officers was lifted. by the Lyon public prosecutor’s office at the end of the afternoon at the end of their hearings, “said the public prosecutor’s office on Friday in a press release.
While the first elements “seem to corroborate the hypothesis of self-defense”, additional investigations will however “confirm the exact circumstances in which the police used their weapons”, continued the prosecution, announcing that it had decided to open a judicial inquiry on the same counts.
Aged 26 and from the Annecy region, the driver of the vehicle had been hospitalized, with a “very committed” vital prognosis, before dying late in the evening on Friday. His criminal record bore the mention of nine convictions and he was the subject of searches for “aggravated theft” of vehicles, according to the same source. His passenger, a 20-year-old man from Lyon, died instantly. He was known to the police but his criminal record did not mention any conviction, said the prosecution.
Policeman hit
Around 12:05 a.m. on the night of Thursday to Friday in Vénissieux, a sensitive town very close to Lyon, four police officers on night patrol spotted a reported stolen vehicle parked in the parking lot of a shopping center. “While the police were preparing to check the car, the driver engaged reverse gear then forward gear, hitting a police officer who was thrown onto the bonnet of the vehicle”, according to a first press release from the prosecution. “The car continued to progress and two police officers, including the one positioned on the hood, used their weapon several times”, he said and “the car ended its race a hundred meters further”.
An investigation for concealment of theft, aggravated refusal to comply and violence with a weapon against law enforcement officers was also entrusted to the Departmental Public Security. Out of 14,240 refusals to comply recorded in 2021 by the national police, 157 cases concern “use of firearms on moving vehicles”, according to figures given by the spokesperson for the national police on Europe 1 in June 2022.