Two days after the death of gendarme Eric Comyn following his refusal to obey in Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes), the suspect was charged, on Wednesday 28 August, with murder of a public authority and placed in preventive detention, announced the Grasse prosecutor’s office.
The victim, a senior officer in the gendarmerie’s motorized platoon, was violently run over at the exit of the motorway 8 (A8) at around 8.40 pm on Monday by a man driving a black BMW who refused to stop during this banal control operation, explained the police.
The man fled before being arrested a few hours later in Cannes. Resigned Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin provided details of the suspect’s identity on Tuesday on BFM-TV. The man arrested is a “A Cape Verdean in a regular situation”that has been committed in the past “numerous traffic violations, including refusals to comply”.
He had a positive alcohol level after his arrest and his criminal record already included ten convictions for “traffic violations” as well as “attacks on people”According to the Grasse prosecutor, the suspect is in police custody. “not having seen the police on the road” and have it “hit by accident”.
“What’s next for this killer?” asks the widow of the murdered gendarme.
A few hours before this accusation, a ceremony was held on Wednesday in Mandelieu-la-Napoule (Alpes-Maritimes) to pay tribute to Eric Comyn. In a speech full of emotion and anger, his widow, Harmonie Comyn, accused France of having “delicate [s]we tender husband ». “I say it loud and clear: France killed my husband because of its inadequacy, its laxity and its excessive tolerance”he declared in his speech.
“Why can this repeat offender move around freely? When will our legislators really open their eyes? Do they have to be directly affected in order to act?”Harmonie Comyn asked in an emotional voice.
The widow said, regarding the arrested suspect, that she “don’t talk[ait] Not a foreigner, but a repeat offender”. “What’s next for this killer?” (…) Immediate transfer pending sentencing, three hot meals a day, social assistance in prisons, where retirees who have paid contributions throughout their working life potentially have to go back to work to have three meals a day »said the gendarme’s widow.
Twice in a row he declared: “1981 should never have happened,” in reference to the year in which the death penalty was abolished. The sequence, broadcast by BFM-TV, was heavily retransmitted on X by far-right personalities such as the president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, and the president of Reconquête!, Eric Zemmour.
