A judicial investigation of the count of “voluntary homicide” was opened, “to determine, in a contradictory manner and under the authority of an investigating judge, the exact circumstances of the shooting”, specified the public prosecutor of Nice, Xavier Bonhomme, in a statement.
The placement under judicial supervision of the 23-year-old police officer was requested by the prosecution, while the official’s custody was extended by 24 hours on Thursday evening.
The facts occurred on Wednesday, when a 24-year-old man traveling without a license in a stolen vehicle, according to the police, died after being shot by a police officer, assistant within a police brigade. road safety.
According to the Departmental Directorate of Public Security (DDSP), the police had signaled to the driver of the vehicle “zigzagging dangerously”, but the latter had accelerated.
For the relatives of the victim, “it is obvious that we have (case) a homicide, there is no discussion on it”, declared Thursday one of their lawyers, Me Sefen Guez Guez.
“After several warnings”, the police officer fired “once at the driver of the stolen vehicle”, a version “corroborated by witnesses present at the scene”, added the prosecutor on Friday.
According to videos posted Thursday on social networks, the driver, blocked by a police car in front, reversed before trying to disengage and restart. But he is then again blocked by the police car in front. It was at this moment that the policeman, gun in hand and standing near the vehicle, fired through the driver’s side window.
Asked about these videos Thursday on Franceinfo, the director general of the national police, Frédéric Veaux, had estimated that “in a case like this, it is the whole of the action which must be analyzed. What happened before, in the environment. The perception that the police may have had at the time of the intervention”.
The victim had already been convicted, “in particular for acts of driving without a license, offenses against narcotics laws and theft and concealment of theft”, added Mr. Bonhomme on Friday in his press release.
The passenger in the car, a 26-year-old man “unknown to the police”, will be brought before a judge for an indictment for “concealment of aggravated theft”, further indicated the prosecution, which requested his remand in custody. The man had been placed in police custody on the counts of “attempted homicide on a person holding public authority, concealment of theft and refusal to comply”.
Two investigations were opened in this file: a first, entrusted to the Departmental Security, for attempted homicide on a person holding public authority, a second, by the IGPN, the police force, for intentional homicide by the policeman, shooter.
