We know a little more about the tragedy that occurred on Sunday on a road in the Vosges, in Charmes, a town about thirty kilometers north of Epinal. Two of the three men prosecuted for murder after mowing down pedestrians at the exit of a nightclub were known for narcotics cases, the Epinal prosecution said on Monday. A total of nine people were injured shortly after 5 a.m. when a car drove into two groups of pedestrians 200 meters apart in the town of Charmes. A 17-year-old boy, from Meuse, died at the scene, while another victim, aged 19, is still between life and death, the public prosecutor of Epinal said, Frederic Nahon.
“The three occupants of the car”, who had fled, had “been arrested in the morning and taken into custody”, the magistrate said on Sunday. An investigation for assassination and attempted assassination has been opened. The three suspects, aged 21, 22 and 25 and from the department, will be presented to an examining magistrate on Tuesday for their indictment. Two of them were “known to justice for facts related to narcotics”, according to the prosecutor.
Towards a voluntary act?
“Many of the testimonies collected by the investigators confirm that the vehicle deliberately drove into the groups of people at high speed while they were on the sidewalk,” observed the prosecutor. The “same determination” was observed with regard to both groups.
The analyzes “revealed the presence of alcohol, approximately one gram per liter of blood”, confirmed the prosecution, which also reported “traces of narcotics for two of them”. During the hearings, “the person identified as the driver (…) chose to remain silent,” said Frédéric Nahon. The other two “confirmed their presence at the time of the events, one indicating however that he had not gotten into the vehicle”.
In a daily interview Morning Vosges, the mayor of the town of 4,600 inhabitants, Patrick Bœuf, said he was “disarmed” in the face of insecurity and incivility linked to the existence of the Discopolis nightclub, which according to the newspaper still welcomed 1,800 people on the night of Saturday to Sunday. The mayor is in favor of closing the establishment for six months in order to take stock with its owners and the public authorities. For its part, the nightclub promised on its Facebook page to donate its recipe for next Saturday to the families of the victims.