Explosion of a house in the Allier: the gendarmes in an ambush at La Chapelle?

This Wednesday, March 15, a house exploded in La Chapelle, in the Allier. As they came to arrest a man, who died in the explosion, three gendarmes were seriously injured.

[Updated March 15 at 11:31 p.m.] The small village of La Chapelle, in Allier, had a turbulent day after the explosion of a house in the town “around 1 p.m.” this Wednesday, March 15. The public prosecutor of Cusset, Éric Neveu, announced that “three gendarmes were seriously injured following an explosion in a house in which they had come to arrest an individual”, the latter was in the explosion. The three gendarmes were transported to two hospitals, the prognosis of one of them is engaged. Four other soldiers were slightly injured.

The wanted man was 38 years old, and was “very unfavorably known to the police”, with a dozen convictions. He was serving a three-month house arrest sentence under electronic monitoring. The man felt “harassed” by the gendarmes, who had gone to his house on Tuesday, after a telephone altercation with his integration counselor. According to his neighbors, interviewed by La Montagne, the man told them that “if the gendarmes came back, he would do something stupid”. An investigation was opened and the research section of Clermont-Ferrand was seized of the charge of “attempted homicide on a person holding public authority”.

The mayor of La Chapelle said she was “shocked” on France 3 Auvergne Rhône-Alpes: “He is someone I knew. He has lived in the town for two or three years. He had a very good behavior. With me , he was always very respectful and with the neighbors too. I knew he had problems with the law and with the police. I did not expect such a disaster. I knew that sometimes he behaved threateningly and violently. I learned about it from the gendarmes in our sector.”

The unexpected or premeditated explosion left one dead and seven injured. The deceased victim is the man who lived in the house swept away by the flames and whom the gendarmes came to arrest. The individual could not be saved from the explosion as smoke and fire engulfed the scene. It was the firefighters who found the victim’s charred body after controlling the flames.

The seven injured in the explosion are all soldiers who came to question the deceased tenant. The three seriously injured police members of the PSIG were airlifted to hospitals, that of Lyon in the service of severe burns for two of them, including the one with a vital prognosis, and in Clermont-Ferrand for the third man more slightly touched, according to the details of the Parisian.

According to information obtained by a journalist from M6, the deceased was “unfavorably known” to justice. La Montagne specifies that he is a 38-year-old man, who already had 10 entries on his criminal record for various convictions, including traffic violations, domestic violence or threats and insults to persons responsible. of public authority. The individual was on probation. BFM TV reports that, for several days, the 30-year-old had been making death threats by telephone against an agent of the prison integration and probation service (SPIP), that is to say an agent in charge of followed by the rehabilitation of a convicted man. Faced with these remarks, the order had been given by the prosecution to arrest him.

An investigation into attempted homicide on persons holding public authority was opened by the Cusset prosecutor’s office and entrusted to the Clermont-Ferrand research section. The gendarmes must find out how the explosion started and whether it was a voluntary act. At this point, the origin of the explosion is not yet known. However, “the question that arises is whether we are dealing with a person who was waiting for the gendarmes and who wanted to kill. The only constant is that there was a strong smell of gasoline when the forces of the order intervened,” the prosecutor told La Montagne. The man who died in the fire “was he waiting for the gendarmes? Did he plan to kill himself by killing the gendarmes?” questioned the public prosecutor of Cusset, suggesting the first tracks considered by the police.

Before the explosion started, the gendarmes had time to pursue the man arrested in the home and handcuff him, indicates BFM TV. Then, as the house caught fire, the four gendarmes who remained outside intervened but were unable to save the man they had come to arrest.