The octogenarian used a rifle before the gendarme himself used his weapon. An investigation by the National Gendarmerie Inspectorate (IGGN) has been opened.
An 82-year-old man, having used a firearm, died on Sunday in Moselle, hit by the shot of a gendarme who would have acted in a state of “legitimate response”, indicated Monday the public prosecutor to Thionville.
An investigation by the National Gendarmerie Inspectorate (IGGN) has been opened, Brice Partouche said in a press release, according to which “the hypothesis of a legitimate response from the gendarmerie soldiers is, in the state of the investigations, privileged”.
A rifle from World War II
The facts occurred on Sunday afternoon in Fontoy, a town forty kilometers north of Metz. Alerted “about a man likely to use a firearm”, the soldiers discovered the octogenarian in front of his home, armed with a rifle from the Second World War, according to Brice Partouche.
According to the first elements, the man, “despite the warnings”, did not comply but on the contrary would have “several times used his weapon by shooting in the air then supporting and aiming at the gendarmes”, continued the magistrate.
A gendarme “would then have used his weapon (…) in the direction of the person concerned who would have immediately collapsed”, according to the prosecutor. His death was pronounced by the emergency services present.
The medical examiner later found an impact on the body “at the hip”, an element which must however be confirmed by an autopsy, he added.
“The deceased would have opened fire in the direction of the soldiers”
Eighteen “impacted” cases were found near the body of the octogenarian as well as “at least two projectiles” stuck in a road sign and a garage door behind the gendarmes, “thus suggesting that the deceased would have opened the fire in the direction of the soldiers,” said Brice Partouche.
He specifies that, according to “the first elements”, “a single shot was made by the gendarmes”.
Testimonies show “a very heavy consumption of alcohol” on the part of the octogenarian “who would have also expressed his desire to end his life”, further indicated Mr. Partouche.
