French police are questioning an officer after the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old man as he fled an attempted control of a vehicle for speeding, prosecutors said.
It was the latest incidence of alleged police violence against suspects that has prompted protests in recent years by critics citing heavy-handed tactics, in particular against people from ethnic minorities.
The young man was among three people in the car late on Sunday when police tried to stop them near Cherbourg-en-Cotentin in Normandy, north-west France, the state prosecutor Pierre-Yves Marot said in a statement.
The driver refused to stop and sped away before being forced to halt by a second police car.
All three occupants of the vehicle attempted to flee. One person escaped, while another was detained and charged on suspicion of robbery because the vehicle had been reported as stolen.
“The third person, a 19-year-old from Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, was confronted by officers from the second patrol and knocked into one them while trying to flee,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The officer “then used a stun gun” while a colleague drew and “used her service weapon, fatally striking him in the chest”.
The officer who fired the shot was being held for questioning on Monday evening by the police’s IGPN internal affairs department.
France was convulsed in June and July last year by violent rioting over the killing outside Paris of a teenager by a police officer during a traffic check.