The versions diverge and justice is trying to find out what really happened in a district of Lyon considered sensitive.
The Lyon public prosecutor's office announced on Wednesday the opening of a judicial investigation after the scooter accident of a 13-year-old teenager, which ignited the district of La Duchère last week.
“The first investigations (...) made it possible to collect testimonies which turn out to be contradictory, some evoking the involvement of a vehicle in the occurrence of the accident, others reporting a fall that did not result of the intervention of a third vehicle ”, writes in a press release the public prosecutor of Lyon, Nicolas Jacquet.
"As it stands, and while many investigations have yet to be conducted, the Lyon prosecutor's office has decided to initiate a judicial investigation so that these investigations can be carried out in a contradictory manner", continues the magistrate.
The prefecture denies any police presence
The judicial investigation was opened on counts of unintentional injuries aggravated by a hit-and-run and failure to assist a person in danger.
The investigation was entrusted to two investigating judges of the judicial court of Lyon.
On Friday, the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) was seized by the prosecution to shed light on the circumstances of the accident of this minor who was traveling without a helmet on March 3 in La Duchère.
Young people from the neighborhood assure that the scooter was pursued by an unmarked police car, which the prefecture and a police source have formally denied.
The victim's older brother, Hamza Cherifi, indicates that he is aware of two testimonies according to which the driver was pushed.
These two people were heard by investigators, he said.
The accident had given rise to urban violence in La Duchère, with aftershocks the following evenings in the neighboring towns of Rillieux-la-Pape and Bron.