Footage filmed by bystanders showed two police officers leaning into the driver-side window of a yellow car, with one of them appearing to fire a shot as the vehicle pulls away. The car crashed into a post nearby and prosecutors said the driver died at the scene.
Prosecutor Pascal Prache said the officers tried to stop Nahel because he looked so young and was driving a Mercedes with Polish license plates in a bus lane. He allegedly ran a red light to avoid being stopped then got stuck in traffic.
Prache said his initial investigation showed that “the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not met.” The officer has been handed preliminary charges, which mean magistrates strongly suspect wrongdoing but need to investigate further before they can send the case to trial.
June 28, 202300:42
As is often the case, it was difficult to separate peaceful protests by the victim’s friends and family with widespread unrest about other related issues that appeared to use the incident as a springboard.
What started off as a march in honor of Nahel in Nanterre on Thursday afternoon had by nightfall morphed into the third night of clashes over his death.
Authorities have now deployed 40,000 police to the streets, detaining 600 people, half of them in Paris, and with around 200 officers injured, officials said.
Cars and garbage bins were set on fire as police fired tear gas into the crowds. The unrest spread as far as the city of Marseille in the south, and related scuffles were reported in the neighboring Belgian capital of Brussels.
Matt Bradley and Laura Saravia reported from Paris, and Alexander Smith reported from London.
The Associated Press contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
