A man is in a coma this Wednesday, July 5, six days after being injured on the sidelines of the riots in Meurthe-et-Moselle. The investigation favors the trail of a police shooting. What we know.
Injured on the sidelines of the riots on the night of June 30 to July 1, a man is still in a coma this Wednesday, July 5, 2023. The 25-year-old victim could have received a projectile from police fire, more precisely a ” bean bag” used by Raid agents deployed in Mont-Saint-Martin (Meurthe-et-Moselle) that night. In any case, this is the track envisaged in the context of an investigation opened for “willful violence by a person holding public authority” by the Val de Briey prosecutor’s office and entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN ).
What happened ?
The man in the coma is a security guard named Aimène, according to information from franceinfo. He was seriously injured after being hit in the head. If the nature of the ammunition which hit the victim is not precisely known, it would be according to the most serious track of a “bean bag”, a non-lethal weapon which corresponds to a bag filled with balls. These bean bags are part of the intermediate weapons of the same type as the bullet launchers (LDB) used by law enforcement.
Aimène was hit while driving, with two passengers on board, in Mont-Saint-Martin around 1 a.m. on the night of Friday June 30 to Saturday July 1. The three individuals were heading towards the border with Luxembourg, located only a handful of kilometers away.
A shot lost on the sidelines of the riots?
The two passengers who accompanied the injured young man in the car assured the investigators that they were not taking part in the riots. The search of the vehicle proved the absence of fireworks, stones or any object that could have been used as projectiles during the riots. The Val de Briey prosecutor added that the driver of the vehicle had not refused to comply.
Being near the areas of violence, the young man could have been targeted by mistake according to the statements of the police. The Raid agents present during the events told the investigators that they had been the targets of mortar fire and other projectiles launched from vehicles in the Mont-Saint-Martin sector. They also said they were unaware that one of their shots could have injured civilians not involved in the violence. According franceinfo, the Raid police only became aware of the injuries caused to Aimène after the young man’s family filed a complaint. The investigation must now determine the circumstances of the tragedy.