Le Figaro Nantes
The gun was fake, but the fear was real. The Nantes Criminal Court sentenced a young man to 18 months in prison, including six months in prison, for "violence with a weapon and drunkenness against a national police officer". The 19-year-old was arrested by BAC police officers at night on Friday evening while brandishing a fake firearm at Nantes station. He was able to be restrained while standing next to a man and his son, who was about ten years old, and had just pointed his gun at a police officer.
During the hearing, the magistrates returned to the facts that stunned the passengers at the Nantes train station on 15 December. Alerted around 23 p.m. by the staff of the railway platform, the police discovered a man on the spot, a bottle in his hand and in a clearly drunken state, arresting passengers and asking them for money. Two plainclothes policemen approached him in the station hall before being identified. The suspect then puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a glowing automatic pistol. So a metal weapon - and possibly lethal.
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Targeted by the individual, one of the two police officers in turn points his weapon. "Police!" shouts the official, a 49-year-old experienced officer, as he calls on the gunman to surrender. With the intervention of his colleague from the BAC, the young man was finally subdued. After a stint in a sobering up cell, he was taken into custody and transferred to pre-trial detention on Sunday. As for his handgun, it was a metal replica, now under seal.
'Extremely worrying' behaviour
"You made a big, big mistake," the president of the court, Constance Galy, said during the hearing, noting the defendant's "extremely worrying" behavior. "The police were on the verge of acting in self-defence," she added, adding that the defendant could have lost his life.
These are serious and worrying facts given the current feeling of insecurity, particularly in connection with the attacks
Hélène Faessel, representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office
"These are serious and worrying facts given the current feeling of insecurity, particularly linked to the attacks," added prosecutor Hélène Faessel, before praising the composure and professionalism of the two BAC agents, as evidenced by the station's camera recordings. "The two police officers risked their lives in this story, especially since they know perfectly well that they are prime targets. It didn't take much that night for him to shoot," she said. "Shocked," the police officer held up by the convicted young man on Monday was given a brief period of ITT. The prosecution had asked for 18 months' imprisonment, of which one year was suspended.
'Stupidity'
Within minutes of his arrest, the defendant was tested for 1.89g of alcohol in his blood. According to his explanations, he had downed a bottle of vodka with his girlfriend in the course of the afternoon, during a round trip to the casino in Pornic. The dummy weapon, "a toy, which was not even loaded with its marbles", belonged to a friend, and was used to "deter" possible attackers, as the station was "dangerous", in his words. According to the young man, his girlfriend had dropped him off at the train station at 22 p.m. while he withdrew money. He summed up his actions on Friday as "stupidity." "I don't know what happened," he adds.
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Several details of the defendant's altercation with the police were contradictory to his statements made in police custody, the presiding judge noted with irritation. "The defendant did not endanger anyone," defended the young man's lawyer, asking for a probationary suspension from her client.
The probationary suspension was accompanied by an obligation to work and provide care, as well as the completion of a citizenship course. The convict will have to compensate a total of 2700 euros, by way of moral damage, the two police officers of the BAC whom he threatened with his weapon. The magistrates also banned him from owning or carrying a weapon for five years. The individual was already known to the justice system for minor convictions, drug use, minor damage and attempted robbery.