The French national gendarmerie is appealing for witnesses after a vehicle passenger was killed when a concrete block was dropped onto the carriageway from a bridge on Monday (October 28).
Several drivers contacted authorities to report suspicious behaviour of two men on a bridge over the route nationale 176 near Quévert (Côtes-d'Armor), in the direction of Saint-Malo, at around 23:45. The men on the bridge had fled by the time gendarmerie officers arrived on the scene.
An inquiry into murder and attempted murder has been allocated to the research team at Dinan. “At this stage, no arrest has been made,” prosecutor Fabrice Trémel told BFMTV.
The deceased came from near Quévert, said the town’s mayor Philippe Landuré to the AFP. “This is an exceptionally dramatic case, and my thoughts are with the victim,” he said.
The gendarmerie nationale has issued an online alert for witnesses and anyone who might have information about the incident.
One of the drivers to report suspicious behaviour was Mickael Rault, who was injured in the arm when a pebble went through his windscreen. “It felt like a block of granite falling near my shoulder,” he said to RMC and BFMTV, adding that the impact of the pebble was enough to make a hole in his shirt.
These projectiles - pebbles and stones - were also thrown from the voie communale 2 between two areas known locally (‘lieux-dit’) as “les prés beaux" and "la garenne”, officers said.
The gendarmerie are asking any drivers who took this road on this day to “contact 02 96 39 01 83, or 17, to share any information that could identify the perpetrators”.
Jail time for similar crimes
The new investigation comes after two men were sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2017, after having been found guilty of killing a German driver in 2014, in Havrincourt (Pas-de-Calais), by throwing bags of rubble onto the motorway, “for fun”, they said.
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Similarly, in 2005, in Melun (Seine-et-Marne), a motorist was killed by a fire extinguisher that had been thrown from a bridge over the A5 motorway. Two men were found guilty of the crime and sentenced to 10 years in jail. They said that their actions had been a “bet”.
Throwing items from the bridge was a “habitual activity” for the men, who were found to have previously thrown large items such as logs, a concrete beam, and a construction site barrier.
