After shooting dead a driver who refused to stop, a French police officer was taken into custody

According to authorities, the driver did not stop when an officer instructed him to. He was dangerously driving in the incident that occurred in Nice’s southern city.

Police said that the driver instead accelerated to flee.

This is just the latest incident in a series of incidents raising questions about French police’s use of guns.

Advertisement

Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, thanked police officers via Twitter.

He wrote: “Full Support for @policenat06 Agents Faced with a Refusal to Comply on Avenue Henri Matisse. They had to use their weapon against a driver who ran them over.

Refusals to comply are becoming a more serious crime. Our @pmdenice was confronted with two very violent refusals to comply in the last 24 hours. We must support our police in the face of this upsurge.”

Maud Marty (Deputy Prosecutor for Nice) stated that the car had “turned back to be infront of the police car, and rammed into it twice”.

She claimed that the officer had fired one shot at the driver.

On social media, a video showed the car driving backwards in front of the police vehicle that was damaged, while an officer on the street pointed his gun at the driver’s window.

Just after the driver stops the car, the officer takes a picture.

According to police unions, the officer acted in self defense.

This latest incident occurred in the same week that the trial for a 2016 Bastille Day truck attack which killed 86 people at Nice began in Paris.

Experts say officers are causing more deaths by using their guns. Christian Mouhanna (French researcher at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS) says the increase in incidents is due to legal changes that were made in 2017.

After a string of terrorist attacks in the country between 2015 and 2016, the changes were made.

A 22-year old woman was also killed in a recent incident in Rennes. Police opened fire on her car during an anti-drug operation.

An officer of the French police was arrested earlier this year for shooting two men in a car while they tried to flee from a check at the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris. This happened on the night that President Emmanuel Macron was re-elected.

France Info, France’s news broadcaster, stated that nine people were killed in police shootings this year, based solely on its own calculations.

According to police figures, this year four people were killed in similar circumstances.