Two teenagers were incarcerated after a violent attempted murder in Ermont (Val-d’Oise), where a 14-year-old boy was attacked with a hammer on October 4, indicates The Parisian. The attack, which took place under video surveillance cameras in an underground passage at the Ermont-Halte station, left the victim seriously injured, with a crushed skull and partial paralysis.
Although his life prognosis is no longer in jeopardy, he risks suffering permanent after-effects. The two attackers, aged around fifteen, were indicted and placed in pre-trial detention for attempted murder.
Escalation of violence
The attack, which involved a group of seven young people, occurred at the end of the afternoon, and the victim was left there by his attackers before being transported in absolute emergency to Necker hospital in Paris . The mayor of Ermont, Xavier Haquin, praised the responsiveness of the police, while deploring the escalation of violence among adolescents.
“What worries me is this violence which is not new. A year, a year and a half ago, it was with baseball bats with nails. I see that these teenagers do not understand the seriousness of the violence,” he told the daily.
Fears of reprisals between neighborhoods
The mayor also fears reprisals between neighborhoods, stressing that past tensions had already pitted young people from Ermont against those from Sannois, although no major problems have been reported with the neighboring town of Eaubonne. “We are extremely vigilant. Field mediators are mobilized,” he assured, hoping that this event will remain isolated.
Xavier Haquin also recalled the ongoing efforts to strengthen security in Ermont, with an increase in the number of municipal police, now made up of thirty agents, as well as the creation of canine and motorized brigades to patrol day and night.
