Looting in Paris: riots turn into a big fire

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France is burning! It is the third night that riots have broken out after the death of 17-year-old Nahel S. at a police checkpoint. In Nanterre near Paris, a bank branch was set on fire on Thursday evening, with the flames spreading to a residential building above.

In the port city of Marseille, hundreds of protesters clashed with police, shops were looted and 14 people were arrested. Special police units were deployed in Lille, Lyon and Bordeaux. In Grenoble, a bus was shot at with fireworks and the workers of the transport company stopped working.

Videos on social media show stores being looted. A recording shows how several vehicles are stolen from a Citroën garage.

“You’ll Get a Bullet in the Head”

After the fatal shot at a 17-year-old during a traffic check in a Parisian suburb, a formal investigation has been launched against the alleged gunman. The police officer has been “charged with willful murder” and taken into custody, the prosecution said on Thursday. Meanwhile, violent protests, looting and fires were reported again from several cities on Friday night.

Young Nahel M. was shot on Tuesday in the driver’s seat of a car during a traffic check in Nanterre. Video showed the police officer pointing his gun at the driver and firing at close range as the car suddenly accelerated. Earlier during the check, the phrase was heard: “You will get a bullet in the head.”

40,000 police officers mobilized

Following the incident, two nights in a row saw massive protests against police brutality and rioting in several cities across the country. Cars and garbage cans went up in flames, several people were arrested. As a result, about 40,000 police officers and gendarmes were mobilized across the country on Friday evening to contain the riots.

According to police sources, elite units were also sent to Toulouse, Nantes, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux and Rennes. Police prepared for further violent protests and “attacks against law enforcement officials and state symbols,” according to an internal letter.

Mother assumes the crime was racially motivated

In her first media interview since her son’s death, Mounia’s mother said she assumed the crime was racially motivated, but did not blame the police as a whole. “I don’t blame the police, I blame someone,” she told France 5. She has friends who are police officers and they “don’t like what he did.”

The policeman “saw the face of an Arab, a little boy, and wanted to take his life,” she said. She hopes that the judiciary will be “very strict”.

“He’s Devastated”

According to his lawyer Laurent-Franck Liénard, the police officer in police custody has apologized to the family. “The first words,” the officer said, “were apologizing and the last thing he said was apologizing to the family,” the lawyer told BVMTV. His client saw the video for the first time in custody and was “extremely shocked by the violence of this video”.

“He’s devastated. He doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people. He didn’t want to kill,” the lawyer added, announcing that he would appeal the pre-trial detention on Friday. (AFP/SDA/neo)

Source: Blick