Romainville: 19-year-old boy in critical condition after being beaten

“We heard noise and then screams from everywhere. I thought it was a couple hitting each other, ”said the resident. It was 9:30 p.m. Monday evening when rue Carnot, near the city center, usually so quiet, was the scene of a dramatic event. A 19-year-old boy from Romainville was found, lying on his back in the middle of the road, his face swollen. “All around him, there were five or six people talking to him: Don't move. We take your phone and we take care of you. We then thought of a road accident, ”continues this witness. This is also what the neighbor opposite believed: "He was lying on the ground, there was a dark green car behind him and a scooter but which was not overturned," specifies this other witness. Then the car left. But no one yelled at the driver. "

"He was talking and then he started convulsing"

The hypothesis of a collision between the pedestrian and a car has been formally rejected by the investigators who favor a settling of accounts. According to a source close to the investigation, "the victim was kicked and punched as well as with a helmet by two men on a scooter". The young man suffers from a serious head trauma. His vital prognosis is on.

Still aware, he was taken care of by other young people who sat with his back to the wall. "He was talking," remembers this neighbor. Then afterwards he started convulsing ». The firefighters who arrived on the scene judged that they could not transport it and had to call in an ambulance from the Samu. He was transported in serious condition. The authors were not arrested. The motive for the attack remains mysterious and the investigation has been entrusted to the departmental service of the judicial police.

"We ask the state to put in greater police resources"

François Dechy, the new mayor (DVG) says he is very concerned "by this umpteenth extremely violent attack which is part of a long series". He quotes two other dramas which occurred in his commune and in its neighbor of the Lilacs where two young men had died. That of Kewi, 15, killed with a knife on October 4 in Les Lilas and that of Cameron, 20, stabbed in a brawl in the city Youri-Gagarin, in Romainville where he grew up.

The mayor specifies that he immediately approached the family and that he keeps "several times a day informed of the evolution of the young man's state of health". "We don't want to be fatalistic on this issue," he adds. This is one of our areas of concern. We ask the State to put in greater police resources: the police station is in Les Lilas and we want to undertake basic work in terms of prevention by recruiting street educators. A work that we will carry out with the neighboring municipalities ”.