Published14. August 2024, 19:36
France: Policeman shoots dead schizophrenic deemed threatening
In the Ardennes, an officer shot an individual “not receiving treatment” who was armed with a pitchfork.
The man was killed on Tuesday by a police officer in Semide.
A man diagnosed as “schizophrenic and not receiving treatment” was shot dead by a police officer on Tuesday in Semide (Ardennes) after being “threatening”, AFP learned on Wednesday from the public prosecutor’s office and a source within the police force, confirming information from the daily newspaper “L’Ardennais”.
Called to the scene on Tuesday around 8am, police officers tried in vain to control, using an electric shock pistol, this man diagnosed as “schizophrenic and not receiving treatment”, considered threatening and armed with a pitchfork, according to a source within the police force.
As he continued to advance towards the police, one of them fired, “in self-defense,” said the source, adding that the man, who was seriously injured, died a little later.
Only one man fired
This forty-year-old, born in 1980, “was threatening towards the police officers”, the Charleville-Mézières prosecutor’s office confirmed to AFP, which stressed that “the shots came from a single police officer”.
“The circumstances of the use of the handgun by the gendarme are being verified as part of an investigation entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie (IGGN)” and “the acts of violence against several gendarmes attributed to the victim are being dealt with in an investigation entrusted to the Reims research section and the Rethel research brigade,” the prosecution said.
Contacted by AFP, the Ardennes prefecture “will not make any comment” because the facts “are the subject of a judicial investigation.”
(afp)
