Were the gendarmes in their right?
On Wednesday, two members of the police fired on an armed individual in Beaucourt, in the Territoire-de-Belfort, then were taken into police custody.
This was lifted, said the public prosecutor of Belfort on Friday, who at this stage of the investigation favors "self-defense".
They were selected in particular to give the investigators time to check “the consistency of their statements”.
The investigators compared the words of the two gendarmes "with the findings of a ballistic nature made by the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie, as well as the forensic observations resulting from the autopsy", detailed the prosecutor Eric Plantier.
"The custody measures were lifted yesterday (Thursday) evening at the end of these checks", specifies the magistrate.
"The investigations are continuing, however," he added.
Analyzes of samples are in progress.
He had exhibited a weapon
Wednesday around 10:20 am, the individual who died during the arrest came to squeal his tires in front of the Beaucourt gendarmerie (Territoire-de-Belfort) and showed a weapon before leaving by car.
The gendarmes were deployed to try to intercept it.
During this chase, the motorist had collided with two gendarmerie vehicles by forcing roadblocks, without causing any injuries.
But once blocked by the gendarmes against a sidewalk in Danjoutin, the individual known to the police for narcotics cases "would then have opened fire in the direction of the soldiers, who replied," said Mr. Plantier on Wednesday.
According to the Republican East, a witness at the scene "claimed to have heard the cries and injunctions of the gendarmes before the shootings".
Exchanges of fire
"The soldiers explained that they responded to the shots fired by the suspect and fatally injured him, in particular with a bullet in the head," reveals the daily.
The man died on the spot.
His mother had "called the gendarmerie indicating that her son wanted to end his life", had also indicated the gendarmerie on the day of the events.
Read also Belfort territory: a couple found shot dead in their home
“At this stage of the investigation, everything contributes to the hypothesis of self-defense,” according to General Bruno Guyot, deputy commander of the Burgundy-Franche-Comté gendarmerie region.
An open investigation by the head of voluntary violence with a weapon leading to death was opened and entrusted in cosaisine to the Besançon research section and to the general inspectorate of the national gendarmerie.
