A 5-year-old boy is in intensive care in Rennes, after being shot twice in the head. He was in the car with his father when the vehicle was targeted by several hooded men. CRS reinforcements have been deployed in the neighborhood, where deal points are located.
Residents speak of a “horror film”. A five-year-old child, traveling in a car driven by his father, was seriously injured by gunshots to the head on Saturday October 26 evening near Rennes. The vehicle came under heavy fire from “a group of hooded men”, according to the Rennes prosecutor's office.
Transported to hospital as an absolute emergency, the little boy is now in stable condition but still in intensive care. BFMTV.com takes stock of what we know at this stage.
• A 5-year-old boy shot twice in the head
Around 10:25 p.m. Saturday, a 30-year-old father was traveling in his vehicle with his 5-year-old son. He leaves the Maurepas district, in Rennes, and reaches the town of Pacé, towards the home of the child's mother.
According to the father's words, as BFMTV learned from police sources, a Peugeot 3008 has been following them from the Maurepas district where they live. Arriving at the Ponant roundabout, in Pacé, the suspect vehicle moves up to them before hooded people open fire several times.
The little one “was hit by two projectiles in the head”, as explained by the Rennes prosecutor's office and numerous bullet holes were noted on the father's vehicle. Transported as an absolute emergency to Rennes hospital, he is now in stable condition but still in intensive care.
Still according to the latter, “a group of hooded men, one of whom was carrying a machine gun type firearm” had been seen in the Maurepas district.
An investigation into attempted murder of a 15-year-old minor was entrusted to the Rennes research brigade, the Rennes research section and the Ille-et-Vilaine gendarmerie group.
• A neighborhood plagued by drug trafficking
Is this case linked to drug trafficking? According to corroborating sources at BFMTV, the father of the child, aged 30, has already been convicted for acts related to the use of narcotics and is known to the services for the use and sale of narcotics.
The same day, in the morning, near the Gros-Chêne metro station, “bursts of gunfire were heard in the Maurepas district”, indicated the deputy public prosecutor of Rennes, Jean-Marie Blin.
This situation led to the intervention of the RAID, resulting in “around twenty arrests which only gave rise to identity checks, with the exception of one person placed in police custody”, said the magistrate.
For several months, shootings have regularly broken out in certain districts of Rennes, notably in Maurepas, in the north of the Breton capital, where several deal points are located.
Two shootings took place on September 23 and 30 in the neighborhood and another in the Bréquigny district on September 24. A man was also seriously injured by gunfire on the night of October 5 to 6, in the city center of Rennes.
The city's mayor Nathalie Appéré (PS) then warned in a press release of a “turf war between drug traffickers in Gros-Chêne”, referring to “a particularly worrying escalation of violence”.
• The CRS 82 deployed
“The gangrene of drug trafficking is rotting entire neighborhoods, all over the country. The war that we must wage must be total,” reacted on X the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, announcing the dispatch of the CRS 82 on site “to protect the residents from the narcotraffickers who control this neighborhood.”
These new CRS units – the CRS 81, 82, 83 and 84 -, created at the end of 2023 by Gérald Darmaninare specialized in the fight against urban violence and drug trafficking. Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, they can be deployed in real time in a defined area of the territory.
• Local residents in shock
“I heard screams from below my window and I saw a father holding his child in his arms, he was kneeling on the ground. I quickly went down after calling for help. Along with several other people who came stopped at the side of the road, we realized that the little one had been shot in the head,” a witness to the incident explained to BFMTV.
“The father felt like he was being followed and at the entrance to the roundabout, they shot at him from their car (…) We did what we could to keep the child awake,” he said. he still confided.
The local residents interviewed by BFMTV all said they were shocked by the violence of the events and the young age of the victim.
“It’s a horror film. I’m afraid I won’t feel safe now because it could happen at other times,” said one resident.
“The 5-year-old kid who took two bullets in the head is not normal. Young people don’t think, even if it’s a story of trafficking, the kid didn’t ask for anything,” criticized one other.
Maxime Brandstaetter with Fanny Rocher
