A man placed in police custody on the evening of Thursday May 9 at the Paris police station opened fire and seriously injured two police officers. One of the officials was in critical condition Thursday evening.
Exchanges of fire in the police station of the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Two police officers were seriously injured on the evening of Thursday, May 9, around 10:30 p.m., after a man in police custody stole the weapon of one of the officers and opened fire. The suspect took advantage of a body search to steal the firearm.
Targeted by the shots, two police officers were hit and treated in absolute emergency by the firefighters before being taken to Parisian hospitals. One of the officials still has his life threatening this Friday morning declared the prefect of police, Laurent Nuñez, at the microphone of franceinfo. “There is a lot of emotion following these facts which are extremely serious. We are very concerned about the state of health of the two police officers. We are all very worried”, declared the same Thursday evening, during a press point in front of the police station of the 13th arrondissement of Paris.
Suspect arrested after violent attack
The identity of the perpetrator of the shooting against the police officers remains to be identified according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. The man was arrested around 10 p.m. for having “violently attacked a woman in a building on the Quai de la Gare” according to the police prefect, Laurent Nuñez, who describes an “extremely violent” scene in which the police intervened. The Paris prosecutor’s office specifies that the individual is suspected of having “striked a woman with a box cutter”. The links between the accused and the attacked woman have not yet been established.
When arrested, the suspect was “very excited” and the police officers had to use the taser to control him according to the police prefect. It was during the search and blowing into the breathalyzer that he stole a police officer’s weapon and fired before being neutralized by the police’s response. The suspect was shot in the chest and was “seriously injured” without his life threatening, the police prefect said.
Three open investigations
The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened three investigations. Two of them were entrusted to the 3rd judicial police division, the first for “attempted murder” of the woman attacked by the accused and the second for “attempted murder of persons holding public authority” . It is the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), also called “police of police”, which is in charge of the third investigation opened for “intentional violence with a weapon by a person holding public authority”. The procedure is usual, since an investigation of this type is opened as soon as a police officer uses his weapon.
The various investigations must make it possible to “specify the circumstances of the facts, the identity of the accused, as well as his possible links with the female victim”, indicated the Paris prosecutor’s office in a press release. As for the IGPN investigation, it must shed light on the circumstances in which the police officers fired.