A gendarme was killed and three others injured on Tuesday on the A13 in Eure after a heavy truck hit several vehicles parked on the side following the arrest of drug traffickers, we learned from consistent sources. The accident occurred shortly before 3 a.m. after the police arrested two people near Saint-Mards de Blacarville, in Eure. “As part of a rogatory commission issued by one of the investigating magistrates of the specialized interregional jurisdiction (JIRS) of Rennes concerning drug trafficking, the gendarmes of the Rennes Research Section, supported by the GIGN, proceeded to “interpellation” of the two people, detailed the parquet floor of Rennes in a press release.
A heavyweight losing control
The intervention took place without any particular difficulty. But then, around 2:50 a.m., “a heavyweight lost control and hit the device put in place during the removal of the suspect vehicle”, specifies the press release from the Attorney General of the Court of Appeal and the Prosecutor of the Republic of Rennes. A warrant officer from the research section of Rennes, aged 47, married and father of four children, died. Another soldier belonging to the research brigade of Saint-Malo, was very seriously injured and evacuated to a hospital in Rouen, specified the Ministry of the Interior, the parquet floor of Rennes and the prefecture of Eure.
Two other investigators and those arrested were slightly injured, as was the 21-year-old truck driver. An agent of the SAPN (Paris Normandy motorway company, editor’s note) was also injured, according to the prefecture. A magistrate from the Évreux public prosecutor’s office went to the scene of the accident to direct the first investigations carried out as part of the flagrance investigation. The public prosecutor of Évreux will hold a press conference at the end of the afternoon, according to the same source. “Last night, during the arrest of drug traffickers in Eure, four gendarmes were hit by a truck,” tweeted Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. “One of them has died. I send my condolences to his family and his comrades. Full support for the three injured gendarmes, one of whom is very seriously”.
Thirty firefighters, two Samu teams and the gendarmerie were dispatched to the scene of the accident. The A13, an important traffic axis between Paris and Normandy, was closed in the Paris-Caen direction during the time of the findings, said the Eure prefecture.