The alleged perpetrator went to the police. He was arrested and taken into police custody. It is still in progress this Sunday morning.
Five people were shot and killed on Saturday, December 14, in the North, by the same suspect who went to the gendarmerie after the incident, we initially learned from a police source, before the publication of a press release from the public prosecutor.
· A first victim in Wormhout
The North firefighters indicated that they were called to intervene at 3:15 p.m. for a first homicide in Wormhout.
According to the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of the North, it was a 29-year-old man, found “inanimate on a public road and lying with a bullet hole”, who died on the spot.
According to the public prosecutor, he was killed by several gunshots in front of his home.
It was the suspect’s boss, BFMTV learned this Sunday from his lawyer.
· Four victims at Loon-Plage
The firefighters were then called for reinforcements around 4 p.m., “for potentially gunshot wounds”, to Loon-Plage, near Dunkirk.
The victims, two security agents and two migrants, died in two different places, Eric Rommel, the mayor of Loon-Plage, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The two security agents, aged 33 and 37, were killed by several gunshots near the Canal des Dunes. They were carrying out their professional activity at the time of the events.
The two migrants were killed almost five kilometers away, also due to several gunshots. The prosecutor stressed that their identity must “still be confirmed”. “They could be of Iranian nationality, aged between 19 and 30 and staying in the neighboring camp,” she added.
“These senseless acts mark our entire territory,” underlined Éric Rommel on X.
In the migrant camps, “people are afraid to go out and are waiting for information,” Salomé Bahri, coordinator of Utopia 56, told BFMTV. “They are terrified. When we arrived at the living areas, the team of volunteers heard the shots and we evacuated the area,” she added.
· The alleged perpetrator at the gendarmerie
The alleged perpetrator went to the Ghyvelde gendarmerie, near the Belgian border. He was arrested and taken into police custody. It is still in progress this Sunday morning and could extend until Wednesday December 18, 2024 “taking into account the observation of offenses against weapons legislation”.
According to his lawyer, the suspect, aged 22, is called Paul D. He is unknown to the police and the judicial authority, according to the prosecutor, who added that several rifle-type weapons had been found in his car.
The Northern DIPN did not immediately have information on the profile of the perpetrator and the victims, nor on the circumstances of the shooting.
· An important police force
On site, a large police force was deployed, flashing lights on, and blocked access to the Mardyck road, leading to the port area where one of the many migrant camps on the coast is also located.
CRS buses were parked not far from the small tents set up near the road, in a deserted and windswept industrial zone two kilometers from the center of Loon Plage, in the direction of Dunkirk.
According to Sdis, emergency services have set up lighting devices to carry out observations and measurements.
A legal investigation in progress
The public prosecutor’s office of the Dunkirk judicial court is conducting a flagrant investigation into these facts. It was entrusted to the organized and specialized crime division (DCOS) of the interdepartmental service of the judicial police of the North (SIPJ 59).
For this investigation, the offenses retained are those of murder preceded, accompanied or followed by another crime, crimes for which the penalty incurred is life imprisonment. The qualifications for acquisition, possession, carrying and transport of category A and B weapons are also retained.
The prosecutor finally stressed in her press release that numerous investigations were underway due to “the plurality of victims and the plurality of crime scenes”. Before concluding: “They are intended in particular to clarify the reasons which led the accused to commit these crimes, to clarify the course of the facts and to confirm the categorization of the weapons.”
Alexandra Gonzalez, Vincent Veillard with Clément Boutin and AFP
