March 16, 2017. Kevin*, a 1st L student, fired several times at his school, the Alexis de Tocqueville high school in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes).
Several of his comrades are injured, as well as the headmaster, who tried to intervene.
After half an hour of terror, the young man is arrested.
On March 16, 2020, three years to the day after the tragedy, while the closed-door trial of Kevin and his childhood friend Léo* is in full swing in Nice, the hearing is interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic .
Kevin is released on bail pending a new trial.
To read also Grasse shooting: "We would like to know what really happened"
From this Thursday, December 1, 2022, five and a half years after the events therefore, Kevin and Léo are again tried before the Assize Court for minors of the Alpes-Maritimes, which will resume the proceedings from the beginning, without taking into account the nine days of hearings which took place in March 2020. Until December 16, three judges and six jurors will consider what could have been the
"French-style Columbine"
, in reference to the killings perpetrated on April 20, 1999 in Colorado (USA).
The investigation painted the portrait of two boys on the fringes of adolescents their age, passionate about weapons and mass killings.
"A real arsenal"
Kevin seemed to want to
"settle scores"
with students at his high school — or just
"scare them"
, he later claimed.
The day before the facts, March 15, 2017, he had shot a video in front of the establishment in which he launched:
“All this will burn.
Tomorrow is the big day, I will have my revenge
.
On March 16, he had entered the school armed with a
“real arsenal”
: explosives, ammunition, revolver and shotgun.
Leo, Kevin's childhood friend, would have assisted him in his murderous plan.
Read alsoShooting in Grasse: how schools are secured
For an adult, the maximum penalty for "attempted murder" and "complicity in attempted murder" - the grounds for which the two young people are tried - is life imprisonment.
Kévin and Léo being aged under 18 at the time of the facts, in the event of a guilty verdict, the court cannot exceed 30 years of imprisonment, or even 20 years if it retains the excuse of minority.
The "incredible courage" of the headmaster
Facing the defendants will be several civil parties, students, teachers as well as the headmaster, now at the head of a professional high school of the Nice academy.
Five years after the events, the headteacher is still
“traumatized”
.
"It was an event that deeply marked and shocked him, both on a personal and on a professional level"
, comments his counsel, Me Julien Darras.
“He never could have imagined that one day a student would shoot him.
Today, he lives his professional practice in almost permanent insecurity.
Read alsoShooting in Grasse: the Legion of Honor for the headmaster
Welcoming the
"incredible courage"
of the headmaster, who has also been made a knight of the Legion of Honor, the National Union of National Education staff (Snpden) also intends to become a civil party.
“We want to mark our presence, our support, not only with our colleague, a member of our union, but also with the entire profession.
Because it's a whole profession that has been attacked
, “said Bruno Bobkiewicz, secretary general of Snpden.
“A headteacher who gets shot in the exercise of his duties: we never knew that before Grasse, we never want to know that again in the future”
, adds Pascal Bolloré,
*Names have been changed
