A man driving a car was fatally shot by a police officer during a refusal to comply, Friday evening October 14, in the 12e district of Paris, bringing to twelve the number of people who have died in these circumstances since the beginning of the year.
According to two police sources, around 7 p.m., police wanted to check three men in a car. The vehicle left and then hit another car, according to one of these sources.
“Two police officers used their service weapon in the direction of the vehicle which started in their direction while they were coming up to it”said a judicial source, adding that “one of the three shots hit the driver, who died”. The other occupants fled, according to one of the police sources. On a video visible on TikTok, we see the police performing cardiac massage on the injured man, lying on the roadway next to the vehicle.
Neighborhood cordoned off
The two police officers were taken into custody as part of the investigation into intentional homicide by a person holding public authority entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), according to a source familiar with the matter. , confirmed by a judicial source. In the case of shootings by police officers, the IGPN is systematically seized.
A second investigation for attempted murder of a person holding public authority, conducted by the judicial police, concerns the conditions of the refusal to comply.
At the scene, in a street adjacent to Cours de Vincennes, in the east of the capital, a tarpaulin was installed to conceal the scene. The driver’s red car was across this lane, and a survival blanket was visible on the ground, before a white tent was erected to hide them from view. Part of the neighborhood, where businesses were still open at the time, was cordoned off by the police.
Also listen Police shootings following refusal to comply: the deaths in question
Twelve people dead after police shootings in 2022
Since the beginning of the year, twelve people have died after police fire in the context of refusing to comply. In a few hours, in September, two people died, and a third was injured by police fire: in Rennes on the night of September 6 to 7, a woman was killed and a man injured during an interception during an anti-drug operation; then a man, driving a stolen car, lost his life in Nice around 4:30 p.m.
A young 18-year-old woman, a passenger in a car chased by the police in Grenoble, was killed in exchanges of gunfire on the night of October 4 to 5 during a chase. In August, two men lost their lives in Vénissieux (Rhône), and another in Neuville-en-Ferrain (Nord). A motorist was killed in March in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis), and an Egyptian migrant in June at the Franco-Italian border, in Sospel (Alpes-Maritimes). Also in June, a passenger was killed after a chase in the 18e borough. Also died a driver and his passenger on the Pont-Neuf in Paris in April.
The multiplication of deaths since the beginning of the year after police fire when they refuse to comply raises the question of the use of their weapon by the police. By way of comparison, two people were killed in similar circumstances in 2021, in Marseille and Bayonne, according to the IGPN report.
A law of February 2017 modified the conditions for opening fire by the police. Until then, they were subject to the penal code and the principles of self-defence, like any citizen.
Article 435-1 of the internal security code now stipulates that they can shoot if they refuse to comply if they cannot stop the car other than by using weapons and if, in its flight, the driver is “capable of perpetrating (…) attacks on their life or on their physical integrity or on those of others.. The principles of“absolute necessity” and of “strict proportionality”related to self-defence, remain in force.