Police fired on Sunday April 24, shortly before midnight, at a car that tried to hit them, killing two of its occupants and injuring a third person, several police sources reported to France Télévisions. The facts occurred on the Pont-Neuf, in the center of Paris, a few hours after the re-election of President Emmanuel Macron celebrated on the Champs-de-Mars, without it being possible to establish at this stage a link with this political event. .
The two deceased people are two men, the driver and the front passenger of the vehicle, aged 25 and 31, specifies the Paris prosecutor’s office. They were “unfavourably” known to the police, learned France Télévisions from a source close to the investigation. The injured person is a 42-year-old man, rear passenger of the vehicle, adds the prosecution.
Around 11:45 p.m., a crew of five police officers wanted to check a vehicle that they believed “suspicious”, explained a police source to franceinfo. It was parked in the opposite direction on the Quai des Orfèvres, on the Ile de la Cité, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The officials positioned themselves on either side of the dark gray Volkswagen Polo, but “The vehicle started then rushed towards one of the officials, who moved away to avoid it”, provide this source.
One of the police officers then opened fire on the vehicle, which was heading towards the Pont-Neuf and on the Quai du Louvre, the other bank of the Seine. According to the first elements of the investigation, he used “a dozen cartridges”. These shots stopped the car.
Right now in Paris on the #New Bridgethe police opened fire on a vehicle with its passengers after a “refusal to comply”.
Provisional assessment: there would be 2 dead, the driver and his front passenger, as well as an injured person who was sitting in the back. pic.twitter.com/ghv4GOEDQw
— Remy Buisine (@RemyBuisine) April 24, 2022
The three people in the vehicle were hit in total by “five or six impacts”, according to initial findings. When firefighters and paramedics arrived on site, around midnight, the driver of the vehicle was “inert” behind the wheel, the front passenger was lying on the ground to the right of the car and the rear passenger, injured in his right arm, was sitting on the deck, away from the others. The first two could not be revived.
The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for “attempted intentional homicide on a person holding public authority” concerning the occupants of the vehicle. An investigation was also opened on the head of intentional violence resulting in death without intention to give it. The policeman likely to be the author of the shots was the subject, after his release from the hospital, of a first hearing by the IGPN in the early morning, affirms the Paris prosecutor’s office. This is a systematic procedure when a police officer uses his weapon.