A man with a drug addiction profile took four employees of his parents' pizzeria hostage this Saturday, November 16, early in the afternoon. They were finally released safely three hours later. The maniac was arrested by the police and taken into custody. Here's what we know about the case.
What happened?
This Saturday afternoon, the L'Olivier pizzeria, located in the town of Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris, was the scene of a hostage taking. Around 1 p.m., four employees of the Ile-de-France restaurant were locked in by a man, the son of the establishment's managers. There was “neither clientele nor public”, specifies a police source.
A mediator from the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) was “engaged, due to the person concerned’s desire to commit suicide”, adds this same source.
Three hours later, the employees were released safely.
Who is the madman?
The madman is a man aged around forty, who suffers from drug addiction, according to a source close to the case cited by AFP.
Unknown to the justice system, the forty-year-old is on the other hand very unfavorably known to the police “for cases of drugs, contempt, violence and rebellion”, according to several police sources cited by our colleagues.
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The individual would already be known “for similar acts committed at his home in 2022 with the threat of suicide”, indicates a police source to RTL.
The retrenched man would have contacted his mother this Saturday to tell her that he was “in need of cocaine”. It was she who then contacted the police, fearing the worst.
Contacted by BFMTV, his lawyer conceded that his client's mental state “had deteriorated recently”.
Some residents confide that the madman did not have a good reputation in the neighborhood.
Every day, we pass the restaurant, we see that it smokes, sometimes drugs […] I have neighbors who often go to the restaurant and who tell me that it is not very clean.
A young man (to BFMTV)
“I see him every evening in passing, he is not well. He has a drug problem I think,” Anthony, a 23-year-old student, also told AFP. “I saw the police arriving earlier, it’s impressive… I’ve already been to the restaurant, there was no problem,” adds Monique Teichet, retiree.
“They have a good reputation, except him. He had already lost his temper a few years ago, it's sad,” adds the manager of another pizzeria in the neighborhood to AFP.
What legal action?
The forty-year-old was arrested by the police around 4 p.m., before being placed in police custody immediately. The latter will be subject to a psychiatric examination.
An investigation into kidnapping and sequestration has been opened, indicates the Nanterre public prosecutor's office.
Boiling oil, hammer blows… They torture their burglars and broadcast the video on social networks
Important device deployed
A large police force was deployed to surround the restaurant at the start of the afternoon. The area was cordoned off.
“Intervention in progress, let the security and emergency forces work,” wrote the police headquarters on “incident in progress” to avoid frightening the population.
On site, numerous police vehicles and armed, helmeted law enforcement officers blocked the streets, to establish a security perimeter in the neighborhood.
T.D.
