“It’s very serious, we have never had these facts,” warns number 2 of the Grenoble police

A bus was hit by seven shots Monday evening around 11:45 p.m., in Échirolles, south of Grenoble (Isère), without causing any injuries.

A bus targeted by gunfire in Echirolles (Isère), “it’s very serious”, “we’ve never had these facts before”, estimates Christian Goyheneix, deputy to the departmental director of the national police, on France Bleu Isère Wednesday April 24. Monday evening, a bus was hit by seven shots as it returned to the C7 terminus, in Comboire, without any passengers. The driver took refuge behind the terminal building and was not injured.

For number 2 of the Grenoble police, “this is very serious”. “I am not aware of a precedent in public transport. Even if we can think that the driver was not targeted as such, we can think that the perpetrators of the shots saw a bus at the “stop and that they made perhaps recreational use of a weapon, that’s a hypothesis, but we never had those facts.”

The policeman recalls that “delinquency statistics are down for 2023”but there is “a fairly clear increase in incivility and the throwing of projectiles, particularly on buses”describes Christian Goyheneix.

Police officers as reinforcements on buses

The weapon used to shoot at the bus has not yet been identified. “It’s a weapon that can fire in bursts. The caliber is not completely identified because the projectiles are crushed, but we must be on 9 millimeters, at least”confides Christian Goyheneix.

Additional police officers are circulating on lines C5 and C7 (the line targeted by the shooting). “Since this year, we have developed a public transport security brigade, which will be reinforced and which will enter into a more nominal operating system after the Olympic Games.” For the moment, it is a brigade of six agents, “which will be reinforced to the tune of ten or fifteen agents”.