Anger and emotions in Nanterre, after the death of Naël M., a 17-year-old teenager, killed by a police officer this Tuesday morning during a road check. Incidents are underway in the city center, with several fires and clashes between young people and police, as evidenced by several videos on social networks. In the Old Pont district, police responded to mortar fire with LBD and tear gas.
Many police and gendarmes were deployed in Nanterre this evening, while calls to demonstrate have been circulating on social networks since early afternoon.
🔴 Mortar fire in progress: violent clashes in #Nanterre after the death of a young man from a refusal to comply. pic.twitter.com/XHzW2JAY5d
— Clément Lanot (@ClementLanot) June 27, 2023
In the evening, the prosecutor's office announced that the police officer who fired the shot is currently in custody for intentional homicide. "The operations of alcohol screening and consumption of narcotics were carried out and proved negative," said the prosecutor's office in a statement.
Circumstances still unclear
The circumstances of the tragedy, which took place this morning at 8:15 am at Nelson-Mandela Square, near the Nanterre Préfecture RER station, are still unclear. Police officers on motorcycles from the Directorate of Public Order and Traffic (DOPC) of the Paris police prefecture ordered the driver of a yellow Mercedes to stop for a check. The boy would have stopped his vehicle first, before restarting abruptly.
According to the police version, an officer fired while the young motorist ran into him. In a video, widely distributed on social networks, we see on the contrary that the police officer who fired was not positioned in front of the recalcitrant vehicle but at the level of the left front door. In these images, the official can be seen pointing at the driver with his service weapon, before firing at close range when the vehicle starts again in a hurry.
Me Yassine Bouzrou, Jennifer Cambla and Abdelmadjid Benamara, the lawyers of Naël M.'s relatives have announced that they will file a complaint for murder and another for forgery in public writing. They also ask for a change of scenery of the file.