A man who hit a policeman while trying to flee a police check in Carcassonne (Aude) at the wheel of a car was seriously injured by a firearm, the prosecution said on Sunday. The IGPN, the police force, was seized. The circumstances surrounding the shots fired by police officers remain unclear, with the family’s version contradicting that of a police union.
On Thursday, “a chase began in the narrow streets of the Bastide district of Carcassonne between the driver of a Peugeot 206 SW and three police officers from the anti-crime brigade,” the prosecutor said in a statement. of Carcassonne Geraldine Labialle. “A police officer was injured in the legs by the vehicle. Treated at the hospital, he came out the same evening”, she added, stressing that the vehicle had taken forbidden directions at “very high speed” and caused “many damage to the public domain”.
Police plead self-defense
To reach the arrest, two police officers “used their service weapons”, said the prosecution, without specifying when the shooting took place. The man, in his forties and injured in the leg and shoulder, is still hospitalized in the intensive care unit.
According to the police union Alliance, the officials who plead “self-defense” used their firearm while the fugitive was in his car. The man’s family, relying on a video of the arrest shot by a local resident, affirms that he was hit by the shots when he had already left his vehicle.
search for truth
In these images circulating on social networks and which have been identified by the family’s lawyer, Me Franck Alberti, we see a man running, followed by two police officers, before falling suddenly. The family filed a complaint with the Carcassonne prosecutor’s office for intentional assault and battery, Me Alberti told AFP. “We are not in any anti-police approach, but in a position intended to know the truth”, underlined the lawyer, evoking “disturbing” elements in this case.
An investigation was opened for “refusal to comply aggravated by endangering the lives of others, intentional violence with a weapon by destination on persons holding public authority and attempted homicide on a person holding authority public,” the prosecution said. And the IGPN of Marseille was also seized of the head of “willful violence with a weapon by persons holding public authority”.