A 19-year-old young man lost his life in Aubervilliers after a collision with a police car. The theory of a refusal to comply is put forward, but refuted by witnesses. Two investigations were opened.
The driver of a scooter died in Aubervilliers, in Seine-Saint-Denis, after a collision with a police car on Wednesday March 13. But what happened? “Around 7:20 p.m., a two-wheeler ridden by two helmeted individuals refused to comply. A police crew pursued it. The fleeing scooter hit a second crew with its sound and light warning devices activated, arriving opposite” explained a police source at Le Parisien. This second crew swerved following a refusal of priority by a third party, they were unable to avoid the impact with the scooter, despite an evasive maneuver,” it is specified. The city’s cameras would have filmed the scene.
In a press release published this Thursday morning, the Bobigny public prosecutor, Eric Mathais, declared that the “videos from the public highway” confirm the version of the facts according to which “the police vehicle had to move away from the traffic lane , due to a non-respected priority of a vehicle being identified, and thus found himself facing the scooter which was coming in the opposite direction at high speed after having swerved to overtake” as he summarizes it in the press release. However, a witness who witnessed the scene and who was subsequently questioned by France Televisions claimed that the BAC car called for reinforcement by the police would in fact have “blocked the path” of the scooter before it entered “the van opposite”. Two investigations are underway to determine the exact circumstances of this tragedy and one of them has been entrusted to the IGPN.
A refusal to comply mentioned by the police, but refuted by witnesses
But while a refusal to comply was mentioned in the first elements of the investigation reported by BFMTV, this thesis is refuted by several witnesses at AFP. It was not in relation to the second police vehicle that the scooter refused to comply. If the collision really took place with this vehicle, it was at the sight of the first police car that the scooter would have fled.
The investigation opened by the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office for aggravated refusal to comply must precisely determine whether a refusal to comply actually took place with the first vehicle. It must more broadly shed light on the entire journey of the scooter and its collision with a vehicle.
The hospitalized passenger
Born in 2005, the young man first suffered a first cardiac arrest before being resuscitated and transported to hospital. He lived in La Courneuve, in the city of 4,000, explains a police source to Le Parisien. A second person was on the scooter at the time of the accident.
For now, two investigations have been opened by the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office. A first, entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN). A second, for aggravated refusal to comply, entrusted to the judicial accident processing service of the police headquarters. The passenger of the scooter had been placed in police custody but this measure was lifted because the latter had to be hospitalized to receive treatment, as indicated France 3.