Eight shots in just over six seconds. Two brigade members are being tried, on Thursday, October 3, in Bobigny for intentional violence with a weapon for seriously injuring a motorist and his passenger after refusing to obey in August 2021 in Stains, in Seine-Saint-Denis.
On the night of August 15 to 16, 2021, around 01:30 a.m., a team from the BAC (anti-crime brigade) from Stains, dressed in civilian clothes and in an unmarked car, intervened to control a vehicle whose driver was under the influence of alcohol. First he stopped near the police, the car reversed and then moved forward again.
An amateur video shows part of the intervention: one of the agents tries to enter the cabin and two police officers shoot several times at the car. Eight bullets were fired in 6.25 seconds, seriously wounding the driver and passenger.
The driver, Nordine A., was hit five times in the abdomen, arms, groin and chest, which caused him to have one hundred and twenty-seven days of total work disability (ITT). In the rear, a bullet hit the passenger, Merryl, in the spleen. He was prescribed one hundred days of ITT. Charged in 2022, the officials, aged 29 and 32 respectively, can no longer work on public roads or hold a weapon.
Intervention without distinctive sign
“My clients were faced with a crazy driver who endangered them and whom they could not stop without resorting to their service weapons. “We will demonstrate that these shootings were fully legitimate and justified.”his lawyer, Mmy Laurent-Franck Liénard.
However, the investigating judge noted in his order, although the driver’s behavior was dangerous for the police officers when reversing, the officers did not open fire until later, when the driver had already resumed driving.
Above all, he added, the shots, some of them less than a meter from the victim, were not proportionate and did not meet the legal requirements of self-defense. “Therefore, this trial will also indirectly be that of the relaxation of the rules on the use of firearms by police officers and the invocation of “self-defense” in cases of “refusal to comply””estimated the Justice for Nordine committee in a press release.
Nordine A. assured that she did not know the role of the police officers who intervened dressed in civilian clothes and without distinctive signs. “There is a lack of balance in the procedure, I hope the court will restore it”said m.my Margot Pugliese, who defends Nordine. In an accessory proceeding, he was tried immediately for refusal to comply and intentional violence. On appeal, he was sentenced to two years in prison.
