Is this a settling of scores for a burglary gone wrong? On the night of Tuesday October 29 to Wednesday October 30, two men entered a grocery store in Montpellier (Hérault) before deliberately setting it on fire and fleeing, the city’s prosecutor’s office informed Le Parisien. The manager, seriously injured in the legs, was taken to hospital.
It was around 4 a.m. when the two individuals, “masked and armed”, entered this small night business, located from Toulouse to Montpellier, “to threaten the manager and two customers”, details Moune Mercan, deputy public prosecutor at Le Parisien.
A previous attack in early October
The two attackers ordered customers to leave the grocery store, pointing a gun in their direction. If they complied, the manager refused to leave the premises. The two men, equipped with a jerrycan, then doused the business with gasoline, before setting it on fire and fleeing.
The manager of the grocery store, a man aged around thirty, “was seriously injured in the right leg”, specifies the deputy prosecutor. He was treated by firefighters and transported to hospital, but his vital prognosis is not in jeopardy.
Quickly, a blatant investigation was opened by the Montpellier public prosecutor’s office for “damage to the property of others by dangerous means having resulted in an ITT of more than 8 days”. It was entrusted to the Interdepartmental Judicial Police Service (SIPJ) of Montpellier. The two suspects, on the run, are actively sought by the police.
On October 7, an arson attack had already taken place in another grocery store, leading to the death of two people, the 70-year-old manager of the store, as well as a young man who had tried to rescue him.
