NICE. The police officer responsible for the fatal shooting in Nice was indicted for “willful violence causing death without intention to give it”. A police error is suspected while the family of the deceased driver denounces an unjustified shooting.
[Mis à jour le 12 septembre à 10h38] Was there a police blunder? This is the question that revolves around the refusal to comply which ended in death on September 7 in Nice. The police officer responsible for the fatal shooting was indicted for “willful violence causing death without intention to give it” on September 9 and has since been placed under judicial control with the prohibition to carry a weapon. The decision of the examining magistrate was below the requisitions of the prosecution which demanded an indictment for “manslaughter”.
Voluntary homicide is also what the lawyers for the family of Zied B., the deceased driver, are seeking to have recognized. For Me Sefen Guez Guez and Me Ouadie Elhamamouchi, contacted by the Parisian, “there is no doubt about the policeman’s intention to kill, given the distance between him and the driver”. Both, like the mother of the deceased driver, assure that the video of the police shooting attests to their thesis and discredits the explanations put forward by certain police unions for whom self-defense and the “immediate risk of harm to the physical integrity of the policeman and that of his colleague” justify the opening of fire. The images filmed from the scene show that the author of the shooting is near the driver’s window of the arrested vehicle while his teammate is driving the police car and that the suspect restarts his car in an attempt to flee without rush into the vehicle of the road safety brigade. As for the fact that the shooting could have been a means of arresting Zied after his refusal to comply, the young man’s mother retorted in the columns of the Ile-de-France newspaper: “The police could have arrested my son differently, by shooting at the car , on the tires for example… They could have warned him by shooting elsewhere than directly at him, at such a short distance”.
What happened before the police shooting in Nice?
A 23-year-old police officer opened fire in Nice on Wednesday September 7. It is around 4:30 p.m. when the road safety brigade chases a dangerously driving vehicle on the public highway. The pursuit lasts for a few kilometers before the suspicious car driven by Zieb B, a 30-year-old of Tunisian origin, is stuck in the flow of traffic. The driver makes a U-turn and finds himself face to face with the police. In a new refusal to comply, the man tries to escape the police by multiplying maneuvers in vain. According to the public prosecutor, Maud Marty, Zied hit the police vehicle twice, slightly injuring two police officers at the time of the impact. It was during this face-to-face encounter that the police officer who fired the shot got out of his vehicle taking aim at the driver just a few centimeters from the window of the vehicle before shooting and fatally injuring him in the chest.
The video of the police shooting in Nice
Images from the video of Nice morning show the scene where the vehicles face each other from different angles. The officer who fired the shot is seen outside the police car and close to the window of the gray SUV inside which is Zieb, the arrested driver. The SUV engages a reverse gear then a step to try to circumvent the police vehicle without rushing on the road safety brigade, it is after this attempt that the policeman opens fire while he is close to the driver’s window.
On the video, only the young 23-year-old official is outside the police vehicle, his teammate seems to be driving the brigade car. However, a police union argued that a second policeman was outside and risked being hit or even run over by the suspect vehicle. A line of defense immediately undermined when the video was published.
Who is the policeman who shot?
The policeman who fired the shot is a 23-year-old civil servant, according to the statements of Laurent Martin de Frémont, the departmental secretary of the SGP Police Unit who was questioned by BFM Nice Côte d’Azur. The union representative adds that the policeman “fired to protect his colleague”. “The police do not kill, the police defend themselves” also reacted the police union to Nice morning. Laurent Martin de Frémont finally said he was worried about the shooting policeman who was taken away by the firefighters with the facts. The young police officer would have been placed in police custody in the hours which followed the facts and would still be auditioned this Thursday, September 8 according to information from RTL.
Two open investigations
Only hours after the refusal to comply, the public prosecutor Maud Marty announced the opening of two investigations. One was entrusted to the criminal brigade of the Departmental Security for attempted homicide on a person holding public authority in addition to refusing to comply and concealment of stolen vehicle. According to initial information, the vehicle Zied B. was driving was reported stolen.
The General Inspectorate of the National Police has been seized of the second investigation and must “determine in what circumstances the shooting occurred”. As part of the first investigation, the passing vehicle was taken into custody. At the end of the police custody, the IGPN indicted the 23-year-old official for “willful violence having caused death without intention to give it” and not for “manslaughter” as desired by the prosecution. . The policeman is also placed under judicial supervision and prohibited from carrying a weapon.