2023-09-28 10:54:39
This was the outcome that Nora feared, the police officer targeted by her complaint having never been indicted. In March 2021, four years after the events, this official, summoned by the investigating judge, was placed under the status of assisted witness. The magistrate therefore issued an order dismissing the case. The civil party decided to appeal.
This case was initially closed without further action before being reopened at the request of the prosecutor general of Versailles (Yvelines) in 2019 who considered that from the start this case presented “many questions (…) as to respect, by the forces order, strict proportionality and absolute necessity of the means of defense.
The 36-year-old mother accuses an agent of the anti-crime brigade (bac) from the Élancourt police station (Yvelines) of having injured her on the night of June 24 to 25, 2017 while she was crossing a playground for children with her husband and her 8-month-old baby in a cozy place downstairs from her parents’ house, square Gérard-Philipe in Trappes.
A patrol was attacked by a group of young people
The defensive bullet fired by the policeman’s flash ball hits her left arm which she placed above her baby to protect him. Results: 21 days of total incapacity for work (ITT). In her fall, she injured her elbow and neck. His biceps has a “2nd degree and 3rd degree burn on the external side” – according to the medical certificate.
A few months later, there were complications with an abscess which sent him urgently to the operating room. And she becomes dependent on painkillers. The day after the incident, she filed a complaint with the IGPN, the general inspectorate of the national police.
That night, the police are on alert. A patrol was attacked by a group of young people and an official was slightly injured by a projectile. They describe urban violence involving throwing stones, bottles, and fireworks.
The police officers in this crew all used something to repel the attackers. One a tear gas grenade, another the cougar, a law enforcement weapon sending grenades and the third, this 40 mm LBD (defense ball launcher) shot. Version which was, according to the instruction, confirmed by radio exchanges and video surveillance images.
A shooting distance “much greater than the required safety distance”
In the middle of the games, the family faces these three agents. Nora announces, “I have a baby, I have a baby.” But the policeman shoots. Law enforcement says Nora intervened to protect rioters, including her brother. She has always contested this. The couple always explained that there were no young people on the playground.
The peacekeeper, in his report that Le Parisien was able to consult, describes “around fifteen young people” who, upon seeing the ferry car, began to pick up objects to throw. If he and his colleagues decided to intervene it was to disperse this small group, he said. In front of the judge, Nora will say that there were “fireworks” everywhere but no young people in the square. The police officer explained to her that he felt threatened and said he was sorry to have caused this injury to Nora.
The ballistic expertise carried out in February 2023 says that this police officer was at a distance of between 13 m and 16.85 m. A shooting distance “much greater than the required safety distance” – i.e. more than 10 m -, insists the judge who, in fact, considers that the use of LBD in a context of urban violence, on a closed square where the ” possibilities for disengagement appeared limited” was justified, even if Nora was not targeted. The magistrate who also notes that “the civil party and her husband heard as a witness remained silent on the circumstances in which the shooting took place”, therefore uses self-defense to explain the police officer’s action.
“This dismissal order is absolutely incomprehensible legally, particularly with the highlighting of the justifying fact which is self-defense,” reacts Me Ilyacine Maallaoui, Nora’s lawyer. The peacekeeper indicates that he clearly wanted to target an individual who was picking up a projectile. This statement is incompatible with the Judicial Identity report which states that the passage of the couple in the company of an infant in a cozy room could not have escaped the police. » The council adds: “Beyond the factual incomprehension remains a legal incomprehension. Self-defense obeys extremely precise criteria. »
The police officer’s lawyer, seeing this dismissal looming, explained last June that his “client [était] relieved “. Contacted by Le Parisien, he did not wish to comment on this issue.
#Dismissal #police #officer #injured #mother #Trappes #LBD #shot