“Look, it’s there, it’s red.” From the height of his 4 or 5 years, this child was able to recognize the few bloodstains that had not been covered by the orange sand of the police. “Don’t go there, get out of here,” an adult tells him. The day after the double murder of two men aged 28 and 34, the Gros Chêne slab woke up with an abnormal police presence. Some passers-by avoid walking on the sand pool under the arcades of this aging shopping center in the Maurepas district of Rennes. Others pay no attention to it and pass over it, some without even knowing that this is where two men from Guyana and Martinique died on Tuesday evening.
Both were killed by an automatic weapon in a probable settling of accounts against a background of drug trafficking. Another fled. Seriously injured, he went to the CHU in the evening. ” There was blood everywhere. They were pressing on it, they tried to revive them but they couldn’t. It makes me so sad, ”says a woman in one of the slab grocery stores. Others evoke the noise which resonated shortly before 10:30 p.m. “I was reading and there we heard the burst. It went ratatatatata, like that, all of a sudden. A few minutes later, I heard all the sirens and the police arrived”, explains a resident of tower number 1. Her friend arrives. “I heard too, it scared me a lot. I knew it wasn’t firecrackers, it was louder, faster.
This Wednesday morning, the probable settling of scores which left two dead and one seriously injured is on everyone’s lips. On the commercial slab, the inhabitants talk about it. A little shocked but not surprised. “They are West Indians, right? Me, it does not surprise me, ”slips a woman aged about forty who has lived in the neighborhood for eight years. “When I arrived here, it was calmer. I was told that Maurepas was hot, but I came from Paris, I found it quiet. But there, it is no longer possible”. Mother of an 11 and a half year old boy, she says she is “freaked out” every time her son is outside. “I let him go play ball with his friends but I’m not at ease. We are all afraid of a stray bullet”.
Big firecrackers and a morning shot of rum
This fear of the lost ball is on everyone’s mind here. However, at Gros Chêne, this double murder surprises no one. ” It had to happen. It was inevitable. The dealers are there every day, it’s not surprising, ”says Gary (the first name has been changed). Here, the inhabitants are unfortunately used to living with a group of young dealers, who hang around under the arcades night and day. “They are hooded or masked, we only see their eyes. They’re sitting there in front of the elevator. Nobody talks to them, ”explains a man who has lived on the slab for ten years. A woman explains that she passed by the scene of the tragedy an hour before the shooting. “It was normal, as usual, there were plenty of young people hanging around.” A group of about twenty young people, many of them minors, spend their days here. “They even set up a table and chairs to play with. The cops are there but they are laughing at them, ”says a resident. Some say they come from Blosne, others say they are kids from the neighborhood.
This Wednesday morning, the police are present on the slab to secure it. Officers patrol while some passers-by smoke large joints a few meters from them. It’s barely 11 o’clock when a man in his twenties swigs pure rum from the bottle. “What is needed is a neighborhood police station here, on the slab”. And the one located in Gayeulles? “But it’s too far, and it’s closed at night!” “.
“I’m not here to say that everything is fine”
Present on the slab since 8 a.m. this Wednesday morning, the mayor Nathalie Appéré and her security assistant Lénaïc Briéro exchange with the inhabitants. The two elected socialists sometimes face local residents who are unaware of the gusts that woke up a good part of the neighborhood. “We all feel very angry and I’m not here to say that everything is fine. I came to say that we will not give up. This neighborhood needs a strong police presence and we are working on it. But I have the feeling that no one expresses a feeling of abandonment. There is a fabric of social workers here, of committed people. We must continue to transform this district,” assures Nathalie Appéré.
Classified among the districts of republican reconquest, the Maurepas sector is the subject of intense requalification work. The arrival of metro line B was intended to open up the Gros Chêne slab. But it will probably be necessary to wait for the complete transformation of the sector to hope to see the situation improve durably. Last year, the district had already been the scene of several settling of accounts. A man had been stabbed to death in broad daylight and police had been fired upon. Seven people were charged with attempted murder.