“He eats through a straw”: the anger of the parents of Eden, seriously injured during the high school mobilization

“My heart is in pieces,” told the press on Monday October 5, the mother of Eden, 14, seriously injured a week ago by a tense shot from a tear gas grenade launcher in front of her high school in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, in Val-d'Oise. “His jaw is sealed, he can no longer speak and he eats through a straw,” she added, on the verge of tears, denouncing the “filthy” violence inflicted on her son who has “all his upper teeth broken” and “the lower ones pulled out”.

The investigation was entrusted to the IGPN

The teenager's parents are preparing to file a complaint with the Pontoise public prosecutor's office for attempted intentional homicide. An investigation has already been entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) for violence by a person holding public authority with the use of a weapon. “Because you have to know that Eden could have died that day,” points out alongside them Maître Elsa Marcel, lawyer and Permanent Revolution municipal councilor in Saint-Denis.

The lawyer cites in support of “overwhelming images”, filmed last Monday at the Château d'Épluches high school in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, where students had mobilized to demand better schooling conditions. On these video sequences, we see three police officers, wearing helmets, face-to-face with the high school student. One of them delivered a first blow to the teenager, who in turn kicked him, before a grenade launcher shot in the face propelled him to the ground.

“Our child could have not gotten up”

According to Maître Marcel, this agent “cannot ignore that his weapon can fatally hit a child when he shoots him at point blank range”, at “a distance of 1.50 m”, leaving him “lying on the ground”. “They killed my life, they ruined my life,” Eden told her father, “his first words when I went to join him.” This violence “is gratuitous,” he denounces, emphasizing that his son “simply went to school and wanted to go home because his high school was blocked.”

“To give us strength, we tell ourselves that it could have been worse and that our child could not have gotten up,” he adds. “It hurts to send your child to school on a Monday morning and find him in this state... And it hurts even more because it continues,” assures his wife, who wishes “to no longer see children collapse on screen like we saw [her] son ​​collapse.”

To cover the significant costs of medical and psychological care, Eden's parents created an online fundraiser which has raised more than 13,000 euros to date.