Three police officers who fired on Saturday in the 18th arrondissement of the capital during a check on a car which allegedly ran into them, shooting a passenger and seriously injuring the driver.
The officers emerged free from police custody, without prosecution at this stage.
While the agent who killed, at the end of April, near the Pont-Neuf, two men suspected of having restarted hastily towards a patrol, was indicted for "intentional homicide".
This case, like others involving police shooting at vehicles that refuse to comply, has shed light on the complex framework of the use of weapons by officials.
Saturday, in Paris, three police officers fired on a car which would have driven on them.
The driver, who police say refused to stop for a check, was seriously injured while his 21-year-old passenger was killed.
The Paris public prosecutor's office requested the opening of a judicial investigation on Tuesday in order to "precisely trace the course of the facts and to determine the exact circumstances of the use of their weapon by the police", indicated the prosecutor, Laure Becuau in a press release.
A case which, like others, highlights the complex framework of the use of weapons by civil servants, modified by a law in 2017.
What happened ?
The facts took place on Saturday June 4, around 11 a.m., in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.
Three police officers belonging to the territorial mountain bike contact brigade notice that the rear passenger of a gray Peugeot 207 is not wearing her seat belt.
They then decide to control the driver of the vehicle.
But the latter refuses "to obey the order to stop which was given to him", continues the public prosecutor of Paris.
The officials then chased the car, which got stuck in traffic on Boulevard Barbès.
In their report, consulted by
20 Minutes
, the officials explained that they had positioned themselves “at the height of the window on the driver and passenger side and in front of the vehicle in order to freeze the situation and proceed to the arrest” of the driver.
They point out that they asked him several times to “turn off the engine and get out of the vehicle”.
The version of the police and the passengers in the car then differs.
The officials say they acted in self-defense.
According to them, the driver would have restarted “with a bang in their direction”.
They would have had no choice but to shoot in his direction nine times to stop him.
Despite everything, the gray 207 continued on its way to the intersection between rue Custine and rue de Clignancourt, where it struck another vehicle.
The driver gets out before collapsing to the ground.
The 38-year-old man was hit in the chest and taken to Georges Pompidou Hospital.
As for his passenger, she was shot in the head and died the next day.
For his part, Ibrahima, who was in the back of the vehicle, told RTL that the driver had "advanced a little" and did not "stop" when a police officer ordered him to.
Moments later, officers caught up with them.
"They came back next to us and robbed us directly," he said.
"Get out", "turn off the ignition", "turn off the engine", would then have launched the police.
But his "friend didn't dare look to the left side, he looked to the right side and pretended not to see them".
“I believe that's when the cop must have seen he didn't want to calculate it or get out of the car, he fired straight, at least ten shots.
He wonders why the police did not fire "into the tires or into the passenger compartment".
Where is the investigation?
Two flagrancy investigations were opened after the fact: one concerns the police, the other the driver of the car.
The three police officers, two men aged 23 and 32, and a 31-year-old woman, were thus placed in police custody on Saturday and heard by IGPN investigators.
They emerged free on Tuesday, without prosecution at this stage.
"Everything they said is confirmed," says
their lawyer, Laurent-Franck Lienard , to
20 Minutes .
“It is a relief for them and for all the police officers, because self-defense seems to have been, at this stage, recognized thanks to the elements that the IGPN has been able to obtain”, indicates Josias Claude, departmental secretary of the SGP Unit union. Police-FO.
“We supported our colleagues from the start of this affair and we will continue until its end,” insists Yvan Assioma, regional secretary for Ile-de-France of the National Police Alliance.
The other investigation, entrusted to the judicial police, concerns the driver of the vehicle.
This 38-year-old man was driving the Peugeot 207 when his license had been canceled and he was "under the influence of an alcoholic state and after having used substances classified as narcotics", indicates the prosecutor of Paris.
On the other hand, according to a source close to the investigation, he was serving a sentence and benefiting from a development in semi-freedom.
What will happen to the police?
“When a police officer is involved in this kind of business and an investigation is opened by the investigating judge, it can take several years.
It's a time during which their career is put on hold,” explains Josias Claude.
Pending the conclusions of the investigating magistrate, the police officers involved in this type of case "may no longer have the right to carry a weapon" and be assigned to an "administrative service".
This is particularly the case of the agent who is suspected of having killed the driver and a passenger of a car which would have forced a control near the Pont Neuf, in Paris, at the end of April.
He was charged with “intentional homicide”.
What are the rules for using their weapons?
This case, like others, highlights the complex framework of the use of weapons by civil servants, modified by a law in 2017. According to the internal security code (CSI), police and gendarmes are authorized to shoot in the event of refusal to comply if they cannot stop the car other than by the use of arms and if, in his flight, the driver is “likely to perpetrate (…) attacks on their life or their physical integrity or those of others”.
The principles of “absolute necessity” and “strict proportionality”, linked to self-defence, remain in force.
Questioned by Franceinfo, Fabien Jobard, director of research at the CNRS considers this law "very problematic" because it "explains the considerable increase in police shootings, especially in cases of refusal to comply".
Since 2017, the number of shootings at moving vehicles has increased compared to previous years, according to the latest report from the IGPN.
Thus, 202 openings of fire were recorded in 2017 against 137 in 2016. For three years, the use of the weapon has stabilized around 150 annual shots.
These shots constitute "still the majority of operational shots (60%)" by the police, notes the IGPN, stressing however that the result of the use of the firearm is not "always convincing, the defendants reaching , more often than not, to flee.
In its report, the police force invites officers to “aim at the vehicle (tire or engine block) rather than the driver”, in order to force it to “deviate from its trajectory”.
It should be noted that, according to the National Interministerial Observatory for Road Safety,
As La Croix
recalls
, France had even been condemned, in 2018, by the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) after a gendarme had killed the passenger of a vehicle.
“Given the lack of urgency to stop the vehicle, the use of a firearm by the gendarme was not absolutely necessary to make a lawful arrest.
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