A 16-year-old boy died late on Wednesday, September 6, following a collision between his scooter and a police vehicle west of Paris, police sources told Agence France-Presse, just over two months after a teen's fatal shooting by police sparked riots across the country.
The deceased is accused of failing to comply with officers, a police source said, adding he was being "followed at a distance" by a police car through Elancourt, a town around 30 kilometers southwest of Paris. He collided with "another police vehicle" at an intersection, the source added, with a second police source telling AFP the crash happened at around 6:40 pm local time. The teenager was initially revived from respiratory and cardiac arrest by first responders and brought to hospital but later succumbed to his injuries, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors in Versailles said probes were opened both into the teen's alleged refusal to comply and another into involuntary manslaughter at the wheel, with two officers held in custody. Extra police were deployed to Elancourt, a town of 25,000 people, to forestall any potential unrest, a police source said.
The death comes a little over two months after 17-year-old Nahel M. was shot dead by a police officer at a traffic stop in Paris's suburb Nanterre. A video of the point-blank shooting spread online, sparking outrage and rioting across France in an echo of past episodes of unrest triggered by deaths of young men with migrant backgrounds in encounters with police.