Shortly before 3 p.m., Freddy Ligeon appeared at the bar of the Angers judicial court (Maine-et-Loire), this Friday, June 28, 2024. On the evening of Tuesday, June 25, 2024, at his parents’ home in Etriché, north of Angers, the 25-year-old man said he wanted to “to finish it”. Neither the intervention of his best friend, nor that of his parents, will make him change his mind.
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Called to the scene, the police tried to reason with the man from the garage – separated from the bedroom in which the young man was hiding by a staircase – family. In vain. Freddy Ligeon said he wanted to be alone. To turn off the light and get to sleep, he grabbed a sniper rifle – one of the 25 sealed items that the courts would confiscate – and tried twice to reach the switch.
“I should never have done that”
One of the two gendarmes present during the intervention said he heard a metallic noise just a few meters from him, similar to a lead bullet hitting the ground. The accused says he never had “meant harm” to the police. His only intention? He repeats it: “To end it.”
After several hours of negotiation, the young man finally surrendered. “I should never have done that,” he regrets. Facing the profile “worrisome” of the accused, the public prosecutor is requesting a sentence of three years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years for 18 months.
After deliberating, the court declared the man guilty of the acts with which he was accused: violence against soldiers of the national gendarmerie and violence with the use or threat of a weapon.
Freddy Ligeon is sentenced to thirty months’ imprisonment, including fifteen months suspended on probation for two years. Kept in detention, he is also required to receive treatment and is prohibited from possessing a weapon for five years.
