The prosecution opened an investigation for attempted homicide, specifying that the alleged shooter, according to the first elements of the investigation, “would have engaged in the sale of narcotics”, in the area where the facts occurred, ” over the past few days.
According to the public prosecutor in Poitiers, Cyril Lacombe, a suspect whose identity is being verified, “present for several weeks in the city”, is wanted.
During a search Friday morning in a home he allegedly occupied, seven rounds of ammunition of the same caliber as the 11 found at the scene of the shooting, as well as “partial elements of a dismantled weapon”, were seized by the investigators.
Thursday evening, the police intervened around 10:45 p.m. after gunfire in front of a kebab restaurant in a working-class area of the city, finding the first person injured on the ground, shot in the head.
Aged 15, he was hospitalized in a state of absolute emergency, his life prognosis being in jeopardy. Two other teenagers were injured by gunfire, a 16-year-old in a shoulder, the other a 15-year-old in an ankle. They were taken care of by emergency services.
Two other victims aged 16, with more minor injuries to the scalp and one foot, presented themselves directly to the hospital. Eleven shell casings “which would have been fired by a semi-automatic weapon of type 22 long rifle” were found near the restaurant, according to the prosecution.
The events took place in the Couronneries district, classified as a priority for city policy (QPV), where reinforcements of mobile forces must be deployed on Friday evening.
Brawl
The Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, declared Friday morning that the shooting had been followed by a “brawl between rival gangs which involved several hundred people” who came to the scene, the prefect of Vienne Jean-Marie Girier then specifying that not all of them had participated in the fight.
According to the police and the prosecutor's office, the scuffles only involved “50 to 60 people”, dispersed using three tear gas grenades. Reinforcements from the gendarmerie intervened and calm was restored around 11:30 p.m.
Two witnesses present on site were attacked “as being likely to know the identity of the shooter”, a third person “being designated by the clamor as being able to know the latter”, added the prosecutor.
The environmentalist mayor of Poitiers, Léonore Moncond'huy, spoke of “an unprecedented episode” in the history of this city of around 90,000 inhabitants, which according to her “testifies to a fairly serious evolution in society”.
On site Friday morning, she recalled that the Couronneries district had suffered from urban violence in the summer of 2023 after the death of young Nahel in the Paris region, its shopping center having been burned down in particular.
“We are next to the police station which has not yet reopened,” regretted the elected official, pleading for a strengthening of security means “on the ground”.
According to the prefect, the district concerned is home to “two or three drug dealing points which are important and mobilize the national police a lot on a daily basis” but it remains “relatively calm”: “it is not controlled by the dealers even if it can there may be tensions,” said Mr. Girier, calling on families “not to leave minors in the street in the evening.”
