It is difficult at the moment to know whether these two events can be compared. One thing is certain. The Easter weekend was hectic near Melun (Seine-et-Marne). Friday evening, shortly after 7 p.m., a man in his forties was treated by emergency services after being hit in the arm by a small caliber bullet. Rushed to Melun hospital, he was questioned by the police. According to the victim's statements, the man was going to the El Nour mosque in the Mézereaux district, when he witnessed a violent altercation between young people. He would then have interposed himself in the middle of the ten or so individuals. It was then that he heard an explosion and then felt a sharp pain in his forearm. The victim was unable to determine where the shot came from. An investigation was opened by the Melun public prosecutor's office. “The circumstances are not very clear,” a source close to the investigation tells us.
This Saturday, at 6:30 p.m., detonations rang out on rue Lavoisier, around 6 p.m., not far from the scene of the shooting the day before. On site, the police noted that an individual was being treated by the emergency services for hunting lead injuries, without his life threatening. The victim of the shooting, a man in his twenties, known to the TAJ (processing of criminal records), had several impacts in the back. At the time of the incident, he was in the company of two other people in a parked Twingo. It was then that a hooded individual approached the victim and shot him several times before fleeing. Near the vehicle, the police found ammunition of different calibers which could suggest an exchange of fire.
Also read: The rivalries between the gangs of Melun and those of Mée told from the inside
The two people who accompanied the victim in the Twingo were taken into police custody. One of them was also known to the TAJ. Gunshot residue samples will be taken this Sunday. The injured person will also be placed in police custody following his hospitalization. “For the moment, we do not know if it is a personal dispute or a settling of scores between rival gangs,” a police source tells us. An investigation has been opened.
These two episodes of violence are reminiscent of those which often break out between gangs of young people from Melun facing others from Dammarie-les-Lys or Mée-sur-Seine. Rivalries between municipalities which date back several decades and span generations. In 2016, these clashes cost the life of an 18-year-old young man, Wildy Gourville, a resident of Mée, who was shot in the abdomen. Two young people from Melun had been tried at the Assizes.