The 15-year-old teenager, seriously injured by a gunshot to the head during a shooting Thursday evening in Poitiers, died Saturday midday, announced the Poitiers prosecutor. The victim was hospitalized in a state of absolute emergency, his vital prognosis being in jeopardy. Four other minors aged 15 and 16 were injured by shots fired in front of a restaurant in a district of the city.
A man who “would have engaged in the sale of narcotics”, in the area where the events occurred, “during the previous days”, is actively sought by investigators, prosecutor Cyril Lacombe said on Friday. During a search of a home he allegedly occupied, seven rounds of ammunition of the same caliber as the eleven found at the scene of the shooting, as well as “partial elements of a dismantled weapon”, were seized according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
The events took place in the Couronneries district, classified as a priority in city policy. According to the prefect of Vienne, this district is home to “two or three drug dealing points which are important and mobilize the national police a lot on a daily basis” but remains “relatively calm”: “It is not held by the dealers even if it there may be tensions,” Jean-Marie Girier underlined on Friday.
Scuffles took place Thursday evening after the events, involving a few dozen people according to the police and the Prosecutor’s Office, while some were accused by others of knowing the shooter. The environmentalist mayor of Poitiers, Léonore Moncond’huy, deplored on Friday “an unprecedented episode” in the history of this city of around 90,000 inhabitants, which according to her “testifies to a fairly serious evolution of society”, demanding more security resources on the ground.
