A judicial investigation for "attempted murder" was opened Friday against a man who knocked down and seriously injured a police commander during a road check Wednesday in Vienna (Isère). The 53-year-old police officer suffered "head trauma and an open fracture to a leg".
Following the dismissal of the Vienna prosecutor's office, the Grenoble prosecutor's office, criminal division, "asks the investigating judge to indict the 34-year-old driver for attempted murder of a person holding public authority, (...) driving a vehicle after using narcotics (cannabis) and under the influence of an alcoholic state (...) refusal to comply, driving without a license in recidivism (...) lack of insurance in recidivism, "said in a statement the prosecutor of the Republic Eric Vaillant.
According to Vienna prosecutor Audrey Quey, "the driver, convicted multiple times, incurs, under the qualifications used, life imprisonment".
Pre-trial detention requested
The Grenoble prosecutor's office also requires the provisional detention of the thirty-year-old, whose referral was underway Friday afternoon, as well as the indictment of the two occupants of the car, aged 19 and 17, for "non-assistance to person in danger". "These two defendants have not been referred and will be summoned later by the investigating judge," he concluded.
According to the Vienna prosecutor's office, the suspect refused to comply with a traffic stop set up on a roundabout on Wednesday afternoon. By forcing the passage, he violently hit the victim, thrown on the hood and then the windshield of the vehicle. The occupants of the car then abandoned the vehicle and fled with a 4-year-old child, the son of the driver according to the prosecutor's office. But the defendants were quickly arrested and taken into custody.
Hospitalized in Lyon, the policeman, aged 53, suffers from "a head trauma and an open fracture to a leg". A medical certificate indicates a total incapacity for work of more than 45 days, according to the Vienna prosecutor's office. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted Wednesday his "full support" for the injured police officer, "victim of this terrible refusal to comply."
Full support to the police commander hit by a vehicle fleeing during a traffic stop. This policeman, victim of this terrible refusal to comply, suffers from multiple fractures. The alleged driver arrested shortly after.https://t.co/Db1SDv8Iyq
— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) May 24, 2023
In a statement, the prefect of Isère Laurent Prévost also expressed "his total support to the commander and his teammates" following this accident, which occurred the day before the national tribute chaired by the head of state in Roubaix in honor of the three police officers killed Sunday in a collision with a vehicle whose driver was heavily alcoholic and positive for drug use.