After his custody, he was presented to an investigating judge who indicted him for willful violence that led to death without intention to give it, said a judicial source.
He was placed under judicial supervision, in accordance with the requisitions of the prosecution, with a ban on possessing a weapon and exercising his profession as a peacekeeper, she said. He must also take care of himself.
His lawyer declined to comment.
The qualification of intentional homicide by a person holding public authority, retained by the prosecution at the opening of the preliminary investigation on Friday, was abandoned in the light of the exploitation of video surveillance, findings and statements by police officers.
The police custody of the second policeman, aged 31 and who had also opened fire, was however lifted without prosecution at this stage, according to the judicial source.
“My client thought he was going to die, he is very tested,” reacted to AFP his lawyer Thibault de Montbrial.
“The police do not shoot when they refuse to comply, but when, when they refuse to comply, the driver tries to harm their physical integrity,” added the council.
The two police officers had been placed Friday evening in police custody in the premises of the General Inspectorate of the National Police, in charge of the investigation.
A few hours earlier, around 7:00 p.m., in a back alley of the Cours de Vincennes, these two police officers had used their service weapon when a vehicle they wanted to check started when they were coming up to it, had reported the judicial source.
A lack of insurance motivated the control of the police, according to a source close to the investigation.
“One of the three shots hit the driver who died,” the judicial source explained.
The driver’s red car came to a stop when it hit a parked vehicle.
According to a video visible on TikTok, the police tried to revive the victim by performing cardiac massage.
The man was unknown to the police and the courts.
Two individuals who were in the car fled. They had not been arrested on Sunday.
A second investigation for attempted murder of a person holding public authority, entrusted to the judicial police, was opened on the conditions of the refusal to comply.
– “Absolute necessity” –
Since the beginning of the year, twelve people have died after police fire in the context of refusing to comply.
In September, a woman was killed and a man injured in Rennes during an interception during an anti-drug operation and a man, driving a stolen car, lost his life in Nice.
In August, two men died in Vénissieux and another in Neuville-en-Ferrain (Nord).
A motorist was killed in March in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis) and an Egyptian migrant in June in Sospel (Alpes-Maritimes). An 18-year-old passenger was killed in Grenoble on the night of October 4 to 5 during a chase.
In Paris, on the Pont-Neuf, a driver and his passenger died in April, the evening of the re-election of Emmanuel Macron. Then, in June, a passenger after a chase in the 18th arrondissement.
Since 2017, a new law has determined the conditions under which police officers open fire. According to article 435-1 of the Internal Security Code, police officers can shoot if they refuse to comply if they cannot stop the car otherwise and if, while fleeing, the driver is likely to put endanger their life or their integrity or those of others.
Previously, police officers were subject to the Penal Code and the principles of self-defence, like any citizen.
The new doctrine, applied by the gendarmes well before the police, imposes the principles of “absolute necessity” and “strict proportionality” linked to self-defense.
