The incredible violence with which the young Yuriy, 15, was beaten by a dozen individuals this weekend caused intense emotion.
But the precise circumstances of this lynching, which dates back to mid-January, were still unclear.
Sunday, according to our information, the police directed their research towards a group of young people from Vanves, who would have come to fight on the slab of Beaugrenelle, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.
A few days earlier, an altercation allegedly took place with local college students.
It would have sparked the idea of revenge.
On social networks, an unauthenticated video circulated on Sunday, showing a young man, his face bloody, to whom he was told to
"never come back to the slab"
.
Several people, including witnesses, must be heard on this subject in the coming days.
In addition, Yuriy would have been in possession of a screwdriver at the time of the facts, a possible weapon by destination.
Belonging to a band or self-defense equipment in the context of tensions between young people on the slab of Beaugrenelle?
The young man's involvement in the rivalries is not indicated at this stage.
According to the Guillaume-Apollinaire college in which he is educated, Yuriy is a good student, open and without problem, whose aggression shocks and surprises.
"He is very cultivated, well brought up, it was unthinkable that all this could happen to him",
abounded his mother, Nataliya K., on Saturday.
To read also:
Lynching of Yuriy: "Many aggressors know only the law of the strongest"
Since the assault on her son on January 15, she kept alerting the public authorities but it was the publication on social networks of a video on Friday, a week after the events, which revealed the intensity of the violence he suffered.
We see ten individuals beating down on a person on the ground, punching, kicking or hitting with a hammer with unbearable violence, before fleeing in several directions, leaving their victim for dead.
The first medical certificate showed a head trauma with several serious fractures, a hematoma between the brain and the skull, a cerebral contusion, as well as several fractures and bruises.
After more than a week in a coma, and a six-hour operation, the teenager began to wake up gradually on Saturday.
Her condition did not seem stable yet on Sunday and her mother expressed concern.
A residential district
From the day of the attack, the police officers of the 3rd judicial police district (DPJ) were seized of the investigation, opened by the Paris prosecutor's office for attempted voluntary homicide in a group.
No arrests have taken place so far.
The Ukrainian Embassy, the country of origin of the victim's family, is keeping abreast of the case.
In this largely residential district, the affair challenges but does not completely surprise.
Indignant to see the sector know this kind of barbaric act, Philippe Goujon, the LR mayor of the 15th arrondissement, recalls that
"we have had gang problems for some time"
.
“But this level of gravity and savagery is new,”
he explains, explaining that he himself had the cameras set up that filmed Yuriy's assault.
"For several months, we have been asking for police patrols, and dog handlers from PariSeine
(the establishment that manages the slab, Editor's note)
",
adds the elected, who is preparing to meet this Monday the all stakeholders in neighborhood security, in a crisis unit that could be set up in Yuriy college.
A few months ago, during arrests of young people at the very site of the attack, the borough council tried to obtain bans on appearing in the neighborhood.
"A sentence also requested by the prosecution, but that the judges of freedoms have not applied"
, deplores Philippe Goujon.
There is a new disinhibition on the consequences of the acts of these young people: the hypothesis of death is no longer a limit, the other is dehumanized
Me Thibault de Montbrial, President of the Center for Reflection on Internal Security
According to the Prefecture of Police, on January 1, 15 gangs were listed as acting in the capital.
These would be slightly less active than in the past, the facts linked to these clans (fights, looting, etc.) having fallen from 159 in 2016 to 83 in 2020. In 67% of cases (126 arrests out of 187), the protagonists are minors.
But they are more and more violent.
President of the Center for reflection on internal security, Me Thibault de Montbrial, underlines
"a new disinhibition on the consequences of the acts of these young people: the hypothesis of death is no longer a limit, the other is dehumanized"
.
The other fundamental aspect of the phenomenon is, according to him,
"the ethnic and territorial accumulation
" of the bands, which follows that of the neighborhoods to which they belong and increases tensions.
To read also:
Rise of violence: "It is not incivility, but the symptom of a wildness"
Yuriy's aggression moved to the Elysee Palace, where the president's office had an exchange with the young man's mother on Sunday.
The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin also referred to the
"incredible savagery"
of the attack, asking for arrests, and the Minister of the Seals promised that there would be
"no impunity"
for the perpetrators.
The other reactions, coming from figures on the right, often expressed anger at the teenager's aggression.
Valérie Pécresse, president (LR) of the Île-de-France region, thus called for
“a national awareness”
on juvenile crime.
At the RN, Marine Le Pen, spoke of
"barbaric lynchings"
, affirming on Twitter that
"the government can no longer turn a blind eye to this daily ultraviolence and respond only by the culture of excuse"
.
Rachida Dati (LR) called into question
“the balance sheet of the left at the Town Hall”
having made Paris a
“capital of impunity”
.
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, said for her part:
"Extremely shocked by the incredible aggression of young Yuriy."