Man, 22, shot dead by police on central Nice street during arrests

A 22-year-old man was shot dead on a street in central Nice during a police operation which appears to have gone wrong yesterday (January 19).

The shooting took place around 11:30 on Rue de la Buffa.

Rocco Montervino, whose épicerie is situated on the Rue Maccarini, just metres away from the scene of the incident, told Actu Nice: “I heard two or three shots, I went out of my shop and saw police officers wearing balaclavas and heavily armed were blocking the street.”

A team from the Brigade de recherche et d’intervention, which specialises in serious criminal cases such as armed robbery, had arrested several people, and one had attempted to flee.

“This arrest went wrong because a police officer used their firearm by shooting one of the people, who died” at around 12:30, Nice’s public prosecutor Xavier Bonhomme said at the scene.

Mr Bonhomme reported the incident to the Inspection générale de la police nationale, the authority which monitors the police force, and the officer was arrested on suspicion of culpable homicide, Le Figaro reports.

The incident happened near to a vehicle which had been stolen, Mr Bonhomme said, adding that “I know nothing about the precise circumstances.

“We have not found a firearm on the victim’s person.”

Mr Bonhomme later told Le Figaro that the 22-year-old “was not, by the looks of it, one of the people who the police had hoped to arrest.”

Police officers attempted to treat the victim at the scene after obtaining a defibrillator from a nearby pharmacy but their efforts were in vain.

“The reasons why the police officer shot at him are not known at this stage,” Mr Bonhomme said.

Several media outlets have reported that the arrests could have taken place as part of an investigation into the murder of a 24-year-old man on December 24 in the Las Planas area of the city.

Mr Bonhomme said that several people were in custody in relation to this crime, but did not confirm that this case had any connection with yesterday’s shooting.

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