Death during a check in Vénissieux: custody lifted for the police, the injured driver was wanted

New developments in the case of control of Vénissieux. This Friday evening, nearly 24 hours after the facts, the Lyon prosecutor’s office issued a second press release. We thus learn that the police custody of the two police officers who opened fire in the Carrefour Vénissieux parking lot while the driver of a reported stolen car was trying to flee has been lifted. The IGPN was automatically seized as part of an investigation for intentional violence by persons holding public authority which resulted in death without intention to give it. “If the first elements seem to corroborate the hypothesis of self-defense, additional investigations – in particular a reconstitution and ballistic expertise – will however have to be carried out to confirm the exact circumstances in which the police officers used their weapons”, specifies the public prosecutor of Lyon. The latter also gave more information on the profile of the two people hit by the bullets of the officials. The deceased passenger was 20 years old and was from Lyon. If he was known to the police, he had never been convicted in the past. As for the driver, always between life and death (the prosecution evokes a “very committed” vital prognosis), he is from the Annecy region in Haute-Savoie. Aged 26, he has 9 mentions in his criminal record. And he was also actively sought as part of an open investigation for aggravated theft of vehicles. This may explain his desire to escape the police at all costs, even if it means knocking over one of them, propelled onto the hood and then onto the ground. This had triggered the fire of the police. To conclude, the Lyon public prosecutor’s office explains that in order to shed full light on the circumstances of this control, and “in order to allow the families of the deceased and of the seriously injured person to access the procedure and in order to ensure the conduct of the investigations in a contradictory manner, (he) decided to open a judicial investigation on the same counts”. X