An investigation was opened this Saturday, October 20, the day after the death at the hospital of a young man who had just been arrested for theft by the vigils of an Auchan hypermarket of the Nice metropolitan area.
The facts go back to yesterday, Friday, in an Auchan hypermarket of La Trinité, in the agglomeration of Nice. According to the first points cited by the prosecutor, a young person "rather unfavorably known to the gendarmerie for acts of drugs, violence and theft" was caught transferring a bottle of alcohol to another - vodka according to the teaches - then apprehended by two vigilantes at the cash desk at 4:46 pm
He was taken to the premises of the store's security. "CCTV images show that suddenly he has a behavior that appears aggressive" and "will be sought if it results from an epileptic seizure or circumstances of the interpellation," added the prosecutor Jean-Michel Priest, at a press point this Saturday.
The victim "screamed and made disordered gestures"
The young man "knelt down, screamed and made untidy gestures, then lay on the floor. He was then seized with violent convulsions " , wrote in a statement Auchan Retail France. After having received the reinforcement of two other colleagues, the guards called the gendarmes who in turn warned the firefighters, the gendarmerie said. "The security department of the store got in touch with the fire brigade at 4:53 pm, and then with the gendarmerie at 4:56 pm , " explains Auchan.
He was transported to the Pasteur Hospital in Nice where he made "several cardiovascular stops" and died around 9 pm, the prosecutor said. "He did not die in the store, but in the hospital and it is the entire journey and its care that will be the subject of a review of detail," said Jean-Michel Priest, expressing "his compassion" for the victim and his family, living near Nice. The deceased young man was born in 1997. He suffered from a "very degraded" health and a "very important epilepsy" .
Four guards in custody
Jean-Michel Priest promised "all possible and imaginable investigations" . "I want to know the truth of this case," he said. The investigation entrusted to the gendarmerie research brigade of Nice was opened "to know the circumstances of the interpellation and the possible violence which could have been committed" .
Four guards were in custody on Saturday and heard by the gendarmerie that said "no assumption was excluded . " "Given the evidence we have, there was no aggression either on the part of the young man or that of the security agents , " responded Auchan.
However, a first forensic examination revealed "traces of violence on the body but not lethal" , as well as the presence "of an edema in the skull but whose cause may be epilepsy," said the prosecutor. "Prolonged epilepsy can cause intracranial edema, but it can also be the result of trauma during the arrest," he said, adding that an autopsy would be performed "soon" .