Several people were injured in an RER E train after a fight broke out. A 16-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of being beaten with an axe.
A fight broke out in an RER E towards Tournan-en-Brie this Monday, November 4 morning in Seine-et-Marne, leaving four injured with an ax. The main suspect, a 16-year-old young man, was arrested. Other people were involved and are still being sought.
• Two people seriously injured in the hand and head
Around 8 a.m., several people entered an RER E train at Ozoir-la-Ferrière station (Seine-et-Marne). A fight then broke out and ax blows were struck.
Four people were injured, two of them seriously. According to a police source at BFMTV, one victim had his hand cut off and another had his skull cut open. The town of Ozoir-la-Ferrière, for its part, mentions, “according to the first elements of the investigation”, a person victim of “hatchet blows to the head, back and arm” and another “injured two fingers of the hand without losing the use of it.
Two young women witnessed the incident from the next train. “We saw people coming out with their hands in the air, saying that someone had been ‘chopped’ and that scared us very much,” they tell BFMTV.
“When the security and emergency forces arrived, the perpetrators of the attack were no longer on the scene,” said the prefect of Seine-et-Marne.
• A 16-year-old boy arrested, an ax found
The participants in this brawl were sought by the police. The town of Ozoir-la-Ferrière indicates in a press release that the first elements of the investigation demonstrated that the people involved are “young people from Ozoir-la-Ferrière, Roissy-en-Brie and Pontault-Combault , who were going to the Clément-Ader high school in Tournan-en-Brie”.
A 16-year-old young man was subsequently arrested at his home, BFMTV learned from a police source. He is suspected of being the author of the ax blows.
According to information from BFMTV, a search was carried out at his home and an ax was found there.
The other people involved in the brawl remain wanted. CCTV footage from the city is being analyzed.
• “A brawl between gangs” suspected
For its part, the prefecture hypothesizes a fight between rival gangs. “The facts are probably linked to a fight between gangs and not to drug trafficking,” says the prefect of Seine-et-Marne in his press release.
Witnesses told BFMTV that there were “historical rivalries between the two municipalities” of Ozoir-la-Ferrière and Pontault-Combault.
“It was young people from the town of Ozoir who hit young people from Pontault,” said a resident of the town of Seine-et-Marne. “There may be rivalries between neighborhoods, but there’s no real context.”
The latter witnessed the fight scene in the morning, during rush hour. “They were leaving for class in the morning. The young people here blocked the train (by activating the alarm signal, Editor's note) and they hit everyone with weapons.”
• Reinforced patrols
The number of police patrols on the RER E line was increased following this attack, assured the prefect. The town hall of Ozoir-la-Ferrière adds that the railway police will also carry out “patrols in front of the Lino-Ventura vocational high school”.
Finally, the municipality of Ozoir-la-Ferrière “deplores this indiscriminate violence, sends all its support to the victims and wishes a criminal response commensurate with the seriousness of the facts”.
Mélanie Bertrand, Marie Roux and Marjorie Marcillac, with Juliette Moreau Alvarez
