• During this seventh week of the trial of the July 14 attack, the policewoman who shot the terrorist testified.

  • “We run after the truck.

    There are all the people who are run over, we see people who pass under the wheels, who are thrown.

    I say to myself "damn, it has to stop, it has to stop" ”, she told Tuesday before the special assize court of Paris.

  • Asked about the system in place that evening, on the national police side, she assures us that it was "usual for July 14", but adds "when we see the result, of course, it was too light".

His athletic build suddenly seems very frail.

Coming to testify Tuesday at the trial of the Nice attack, Magali Cotton, the policewoman who shot the terrorist on July 14, 2016, burst into tears before starting her story.

That of three police officers from the specialized field brigade (BST) launched, on foot, in pursuit of a 19-tonne truck committing a massacre on the Promenade des Anglais, where nearly 30,000 people were gathered to attend the festivities of the National Day.

Arrived at its height, they approach the cabin and shout to the driver to stop.

They do not think then of an attack, rather of a drunken man, "who no longer manages his vehicle".

But "the driver points a gun at us and shoots three times", before leaving at full speed, says Magali Cotton in a deep voice.

Brown hair pulled back, jeans and black T-shirt, she mimics the gesture made by the assailant, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel.

"Damn, this has to stop"

“We run after the truck.

There are all the people who are run over, we see people who pass under the wheels, who are thrown.

I say to myself "damn, it has to stop, it has to stop", says the policewoman, now 39 years old.

After about 200 meters, the truck stops, following a mechanical breakdown.

Her colleagues starting on the left, the young woman decides to go up the truck from the right.

"There's a man hanging in the passenger door.

I do not know who it is.

He says to me "pass me your weapon, butt it".

I ask him to leave,” she recalls.

"I'm stepping forward.

I pass my weapon in the cabin, the window was open or broken, and I shoot several times, ”continues Magali Cotton, before the special assize court.

She then sees the driver's head "against the amount" of the cabin, passenger side, "with blood".

His colleagues who had arrived in the meantime continued to fire, until one of them ordered the firing to cease.

Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel's autopsy found 12 bullets in his body, all from the national police, and determined that the one that had caused his death had hit "the carotid artery on the right side".

“It could have ended earlier”

The policewoman, who is a civil party to the trial, then brings the victims back to the ground to help, but “there was nothing to do.

The people who had been able to leave had left”.

“I have been in the police since 2005. I have already been confronted with hard things.

But compared to that…” She shakes her head and adds, “I can't compare.

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Asked about the system in place that evening, on the national police side, she assures us that it was "usual for July 14", but adds "when we see the result, of course, it was too light".

Her bitterness peaks when she mentions the second police team positioned like them at the corner of rue Meyerbeer, but who had left to carry out a minor procedure, “a stolen blue bicycle”, just before the truck appeared.

"I said to my boss: 'There may be better things to do tonight,'" she recalls.

Another grievance, while two colleagues from a canine unit had warned them by radio of what was happening, 45 seconds before, "my radio did not work", "a recurring problem".

"It could have ended earlier," she said, if they had known they were dealing with an attack the first time they approached the truck's cab.

Still in the police, she asked to be transferred to Lyon in 2017. “In a less exposed service?

asks one of the judges.

"No no, I'm in the BAC [anti-crime brigade]", she replies, explaining that she "thinks about the attack every day", but that she holds on by putting these images "in boxes, to try to archive them.

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  • Justice

  • Nice

  • Paca

  • July 14 attack in Nice

  • Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel

  • Court case