Several towns in the Paris suburbs experienced strong tensions overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday after a 17-year-old boy was killed by a police officer during a police check.
Young people from the victim’s neighborhood and other neighborhoods of Nanterre, Clichy-sous-Bois, Asnières, Colombes, Roubaix and Colmar in particular came out to express their anger after this tragedy, which occurred in the morning in Nanterre.
Garbage fires, fireworks and burnt cars punctuated the clashes between the residents of the neighborhoods and the police.
A total of 31 people were arrested on the sidelines of this violence, according to a report drawn up by the Paris police chief, while a young man was injured in the eye, possibly hit by an LBD shot, according to the media.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called for calm, reporting 24 police officers injured and around 40 vehicles burned, as well as an annex to the town hall of Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines) burned down.
After the tragedy, residents gathered on Tuesday evening in front of the Nanterre police station demanding “Justice” for the young person and chanting “police everywhere, justice nowhere”, reports the Parisian.
In this city, urban violence was concentrated in the districts of the Old Bridge where the victim was from, but also of Zilina, Berthelot, Pablo Picasso and Damades. The police were targeted by projectiles, firework mortars and sometimes Molotov cocktails, adds the daily.
Clashes took place with the security forces, who tried to disperse small groups of demonstrators with tear gas.
This violence spread overnight to Hauts-de-Seine, with cars and garbage cans set on fire in Asnières, Clichy, Colombes, Gennevilliers, Villeneuve-la-Garenne, Rueil-Malmaison, Suresnes, Boulogne-Billancourt, Bourg-la- Reine, Clamart, Montrouge, Bagneux, Vanves, or even Malakoff, according to the media.
In the municipalities where the clashes were the hardest, the police used tear gas canisters and LBD fire.
Tensions also spread in Seine-Saint-Denis, particularly in Saint-Denis and Montfermeil where the alleged perpetrators of the abuses were arrested. In the department, the police responded with more than 46 shots from the defense ball launcher (LBD) during the interventions.
According to the police version, a motorcycle officer from the Department of Public Order and Traffic (DOPC) of the Paris police headquarters allegedly fired while the young motorist ran over him.
But, a video of the incident circulating on Twitter, shortly after the tragedy, shows another reality. We see two police officers checking a car. One of them, standing, leaning on the windshield, takes aim at the driver with his pistol and shoots at point-blank range from the side of the vehicle when the driver drives off. The car ends its race a few tens of meters further, embedded in a post.
In cardiorespiratory arrest, the 17-year-old victim could not be resuscitated by the Samu. Another minor was arrested while another passenger fled, according to the Nanterre prosecutor’s office.
An investigation has been opened for refusal to comply and attempted intentional homicide of a person holding public authority. Another investigation, opened for intentional homicide by a person holding public authority, was entrusted to the IGPN (General Inspectorate of the National Police), the police force. The 38-year-old policeman suspected of the fatal shooting was taken into custody for intentional homicide.
Lawyers for the victim’s family have announced that they are filing two complaints. One will target the author of the shooting for intentional homicide and his colleague for complicity.
A second complaint, for “false public writing”, will be filed against the police, “who claimed that the young man had attempted to commit homicide on their person by trying to hit them, which is formally denied by watching the video,” said one of the lawyers.