A five-year-old child traveling in a car driven by his father on Saturday evening near Rennes was seriously injured by gunshots to the head during a chase a few hours after a shooting against the backdrop of drug trafficking in the Breton capital, the prosecution announced on Sunday.
“A 5-year-old child was the victim of a gunshot (…) and was hit by two projectiles in the head” in Pacé, northwest of Rennes, said Rennes deputy public prosecutor Jean-Marie Blin on Sunday.
“He is currently hospitalized and his life is in jeopardy”he declared in a press release, confirming information from the regional daily Ouest-France.
The child “was in his father’s car which came from the Maurepas district (in Rennes, Editor’s note) where there had been (Saturday morning) bursts of gunfire and where a group of hooded men had been seen circulating one of whom was carrying a submachine gun type firearm.he added.
According to a source close to the case, the father is well known to the justice services for drug trafficking.
The father, who took the child “at his mother who lives in Vezin-le-Coquet” near Rennes, said “being chased by a vehicle and having turned around near Pacé”according to the magistrate.
“He would have felt a shock before discovering his injured child”specified Mr. Blin.
An investigation into attempted murder of a 15-year-old minor was entrusted to the gendarmerie, according to the magistrate.
Shooting in broad daylight
Saturday, around 10:00 a.m., near the Gros Chêne metro stop, “bursts of gunfire were heard in the Maurepas district”the deputy prosecutor had indicated in a previous press release.
“A group of hooded people, one of whom was armed with a rifle, was moving in this neighborhood”he said.
This situation led to the intervention of the RAID, with the result “around twenty arrests which only gave rise to identity checks with the exception of one person placed in police custody”specified the magistrate.
Photos broadcast by local media showed around ten men dressed in black searched by members of the Raid, a few steps from the metro exit.
“In the same neighborhood, another man was found injured, the victim of beatings with his bare hands, and is currently hospitalized”said the deputy prosecutor, without drawing a link between this attack and the shooting.
“Turf War”
For several months, shootings have regularly broken out in certain districts of Rennes, in Maurepas in the north of the Breton capital, where several deal points are located.
Two shootings took place on September 23 and 30 in Maurepas and another in the Bréquigny district (south) on September 24.
A man was seriously injured by gunfire on the night of October 5 to 6, in the city center of Rennes.
The mayor of Rennes Nathalie Appéré (PS) then warned in a press release about a “turf war between drug traffickers in Gros-Chêne”evoking “a particularly worrying escalation of violence”.