The teenager Yuriy, a 15-year-old schoolboy, whose beating in mid-January in Paris had aroused a national stir, testified for the first time publicly on the set of “Touche pas à mon poste” on C8. “I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I don’t remember the blows. I was on the Beaugrenelle slab [dans le 15e arrondissement de Paris], with friends, there were a few people… and I ended up on the ground. I felt the blood on my hands, on my head… Without thinking about it, I felt fear and death ”, said the young man, white sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers, interviewed at his home.
The brawl broke out on January 15. On a video of about twenty seconds broadcast on social networks, we see a dozen young people in hooded jackets kicking and beating, or sticks on a young boy on the ground, before the to abandon. Yuriy had been taken to hospital in serious condition.
“It wasn’t a gang story”
Yuriy says he does not know the perpetrators of the blows which could have been fatal and says he used to hang out on this slab of a shopping center, with his friends, where they regularly played soccer. “It wasn’t a gang story, I’m not part of a gang”, he said again. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, this beating took place against the backdrop of a settling of scores between gangs of young rivals. Yuriy has now returned to school and aspires to return to a normal life.
Violent gangs: why these children kill each other, for nothing
Eleven young people are indicted in this case, most of them minors and living in Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), south of Paris. Presented to an investigating judge at the end of January and the beginning of February, they are prosecuted, depending on the case, for “Assassination attempt” or “Robbery with violence” and “Participation in a criminal association”. Six of these young people are incarcerated.
This affair, which caused a stir within the political class and among several celebrities, shone the spotlight on the phenomena of gangs in the capital.
