Le Figaro Nantes
Gunshots, a man shot dead, two wounded by firearm: three dramatic episodes have just followed in Nantes and its surroundings in the last 24 hours. "It is not possible to indicate at this stage if these three episodes are linked, even if the geographical proximity of the first two is obvious," said Thursday Renaud Gaudeul, the prosecutor of the Republic of Nantes, in a statement returning to the course of the three events.
Gun fire
The first dates back to Wednesday afternoon: around 15:30 p.m., rue de la Chicotière, in the Bellevue district, in Saint-Herblain, near Nantes, the police discovered eight impacts on the glass door of a building after being notified of several shots. No injuries were identified, although numerous traces of blood were found. "The prosecutor's office has seized the Departmental Security of these facts, qualified in the state of attempted murder," says the prosecutor.
An individual killed in the same neighborhood
Less than 500 meters away, in the same neighborhood where a young man was wounded by a firearm on May 11, an individual was killed shortly after 20:30 p.m. "In the immediate vicinity of the Neruda tramway, an individual, probably in his twenties, was targeted by the passenger of a two-wheeler," reports Renaud Gaudeul. According to initial findings, the victim, whose identification is in progress, was hit by three shots, including one in the chest "which could be the fatal shot". An autopsy will take place on Friday. "The Territorial Directorate of the Judicial Police is seized of this case, under the qualification of assassination".
Two individuals seriously injured by firearm
The last episode took place in the night from Wednesday to Thursday: around 2:30 am, at the Total gas station, route de Pornic, an altercation broke out between occupants of an Audi and a Twingo "for a reason that remains to be determined". It was then that one of the individuals of the Twingo took out a firearm and shot two people from the vehicle opposite. The latter are seriously injured and transported urgently to the University Hospital of Nantes. "If the days of one of them, hit in the lower limbs, do not seem in danger, it is not the same for the second, hit in the chest," says Renaud Gaudeul. The Departmental Directorate of Public Security of Nantes is in charge of the investigation, "in the state of the count of attempted murder". According to Ouest France, the shooting took place before the eyes of the station's employee, who had gone to take refuge, and the scene was filmed by CCTV cameras.
A link with drug trafficking?
A few hours before these events, the prosecutor of the Republic of Nantes had just announced the indictment of six people in connection with the homicide of an 18-year-old man last September, against a background of drug trafficking. Regarding the three news items of last night, "it is not possible to indicate in the current state if these episodes, or part of them, are related to drug trafficking, although this hypothesis is naturally already worked by the investigators," explains the magistrate. He specifies that this sequence comes at the beginning of the year marked "on the contrary by a decrease in this type of event, compared to the last five years".