Towards a new accident during a hunting party or a desperate act? This is what the investigators will have to determine. A hunter died this Sunday afternoon of a gunshot wound to the chest, during a beat in Licques in the Pas-de-Calais. The investigations will have to determine in particular whether it is an accident or a suicide, we learned from the Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor’s office.
The 59-year-old hunter was found around 3:30 p.m. with a “gunshot wound to the heart,” said deputy prosecutor Philippe Sabatier, confirming information from the Voix du Nord. Dispatched to the scene, the teams of firefighters and Smur could only see the death of the man.
“An investigation is opened in search of the causes of death” and entrusted to the gendarmerie, he said. According to the first elements, reported by the regional daily, the man was alone when his partners heard a shot ring out. Hunter boss Willy Schraen, present during the drama, rules out any shots from other hunters.
A wood prized by wild boar hunters
“No bullet was fired by the other hunters”, assured the president of the National Federation of Hunters Willy Schraen, who participated in this beat at the time of the tragedy, in this “wood where he has been hunting for 28 years”. The deceased hunter “made a hundred meters, he isolated himself in a clearing” and the other participants “heard a dull noise”, he detailed. The man was according to Willy Schraen in pain, following “personal problems”.
“The tracks of the hunting accident and the suicide are both considered”, the first elements collected not allowing one to be favored at this stage, however specified the prosecution. The gendarmerie’s criminal identification technicians, who came from Arras, were called upon and intervened in the woods where the tragedy took place.
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“He is not a resident of the town”, only revealed to our colleagues the mayor of the town, Brigitte Havart, who went there. This forest is a place appreciated and recognized by hunters. During the authorized period, the hunters come to try to kill wild boars. But obviously, at the time of the detonation, no game had been reported. “We are all upset. I am losing a thirty-year-old friend”, an experienced hunter who was “president of this hunt”, still lamented Willy Schraen.
At the beginning of the year, the government presented its plan to make hunting more secure and reduce the number of accidents. In particular, it provides for the creation of a blood alcohol offense to penalize the act of hunting under the excessive influence of alcohol, the possible withdrawal of the hunting license in the event of a serious accident, with a ban on retaking it before a certain delay or even the introduction of general training in the handling of firearms for hunters.