The blood of a policeman never dries up, at least not before his murderer is arrested and an entire profession, bruised, mourns.
To find the killer of Eric Masson, a 36-year-old brigadier shot on Wednesday in Avignon when he was involved in a street deal, the judicial police have just completed in 96 hours an exemplary hunt, carried out relentlessly.
Deploying a whole know-how combining technical surveillance, telephone boundaries, management of informants and tight monitoring, the investigators sifted through a whole delinquent ecosystem before tightening their suspicions on the alleged killer and his accomplices.
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"
Small keystrokes
», To use the phrase of a policeman, aged in his twenties and whose trajectories, for at least two of them, are marked by stories of drugs and assaults.
Thugs without scale, they would have lived in hiding, especially in a converted garage box, for days.
Their fleeting attempt to escape was shattered on Sunday evening at the Remoulins toll gate, about twenty kilometers from the place where the police officer was mown by two bullets fired at close range.
At around 10:30 p.m., the men from the Montpellier and Marseille research and intervention brigade (BRI, antigang) picked up the suspects gently, without any shots being fired.
In their vehicle, the police seized approximately 2,000 euros in cash.
Barely enough to cover a poor week on the run.
Method and efficiency
Among those arrested are Ilias and Ayoub, two young men of French nationality, whose police have every reason to believe that it is the murderer of their colleague and the individual who was at his side at the time of the shooting. . Aged 19 and 20, they have been convicted several times in juvenile court for acts of violence and drug offenses. In addition to these main suspects, placed in police custody, the police also hear the driver of the car, a man in his fifties. Monday morning, at 6:15 a.m., they arrested the sister of the suspected gunman in Avignon. According to a source, the young woman had traveled to Spain to recognize the route. Because the PJ is convinced:the alleged killer and his cronies were planning to cross the border to take refuge on the other side of the Pyrenees, thinking benevolently that they would travel more unnoticed on a Sunday after dark. "
In fact, the BRI was on them 24 hours a day and the alert was given as soon as they moved,
”blows a source.
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To arrive at this catch of net, the investigators of Montpellier acted with method and efficiency, demonstrating if it was necessary all the usefulness of the judicial police, at the very moment when some would like to dismantle it. After having, it seems, ruled out the hypothesis that Eric Masson was killed by the dealer on which he had intervened, they probed the fauna of drug dealers in the City of the Popes, where everyone knows each other. . Activating their informants - who gravitate for the most part in the world of narcotics - and multiplying surveillance, they directed their suspicions on the potential shooter. On the sordid box, where he would have lived entrenched, and from which BFMTV broadcast images, revealing food, drink and a PlayStation console to play while waiting for the storm to pass. But, without ceasing,until "
50 to 60 investigators
”were mobilized, as confirmed Monday the general commissioner and boss of the PJ of Montpellier, Jean-Philippe Fougereau.
"
Friday afternoon, following the first investigations, the investigators of the PJ were able to gather information which allowed us to identify the potential author of the fatal shot and the second individual present at his side. at the time of the facts
”, explained the magistrate who opened an information for“
intentional homicide on an official of the national police force
”.
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Scheduled for a period of 48 hours, the hearings promise to be crucial. In fact, if DNA fingerprints were taken at the crime scene, none could confuse the alleged killer. The police, deprived of video allowing to analyze the circumstances of the murder but also of the murder weapon which has a priori still not been found, will endeavor to collect detailed confessions. But, in his first statements relayed by his lawyer, the main suspect denies any involvement in the murder of Brigadier Masson. He would maintain, still according to his advice, that he was not there at the time of the shooting and that he did not intend to "
pay for another.
". In this very sensitive case, where two magistrates were appointed, the prosecutor took a supplementary indictment aimed at facts of "concealment of criminals" to determine how the suspects were able to hide until their arrest. Because, behind the one who killed Brigadier Masson, logistics could emerge.
