Five and a half years after the Grasse High School shooting, the trial is back on

March 16, 2017: Kevin*, student 1^time L, shot several times at his institution, the Alexis de Tocqueville secondary school in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes). Several of his friends are injured, as well as the principal who tried to intervene. After half an hour of terror, the young man is arrested. On March 16, 2020, three years after the tragedy, while the closed-door trial of Kevin and his childhood friend Leo is in full swing in Nice, the hearing is interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Kevin was released on bail pending a new trial.

This Thursday at 1:00^eh In December 2022, five and a half years after the events, therefore, Kevin and Leo are tried again before the Alpes-Maritimes Juvenile Court, which will restart the trial from the beginning, without taking into account the nine days of the hearing. took place in March 2020. Until December 16, three judges and six jurors will consider what could have been “French Columbia”, referring to the April 20, 1999 massacre in Colorado (United States). The investigation painted a portrait of two boys on the brink of adolescence with a passion for guns and mass murder.

“The Real Arsenal”

Kevin seemed to want to “clear accounts” with his high school students, or alone “scare them”, he insisted later. A day before the events, on March 15, 2017, he filmed a video in front of the institution, in which he began: “Everything will burn. Tomorrow is a big day, I will have my revenge.. On March 16, he entered the school armed with A “Real arsenal”. Explosives, ammunition, pistol and shotgun. Leo, Kevin’s childhood friend, would support him in his assassination plan.

For an adult, the maximum penalty for “attempted murder” and “complicity to attempted murder,” the basis on which the two youths were tried, is life in prison. With Kevin and Leo under 18 at the material time, the court cannot exceed 30 years on conviction, or even 20 years if it upholds the minority acquittal.

The director’s “incredible courage”.

Several civil parties will stand against the defendants: students, teachers, as well as the director who currently heads the vocational school of the Nice Academy. 5 years after the events, the director is still at large “traumatized”. “It was an event that deeply marked and shook him, both personally and professionally.”comments his defense mr.^e Julien Daras. “He could never have imagined that one day a student would shoot at him. Today, he lives his professional practice in almost constant insecurity.

Greeting “incredible courage” of the director, who has also become a Knight of the Legion of Honor, the employees of the National Union of National Education (SNPDEN) also intend to be a civil party. “We want to mark our presence, our support not only with our partner, our union member, but also with the whole profession. Because it’s an entire profession that’s under attack.”– emphasizes Snpden general secretary Bruno Bobkevich. “The head teacher who was shot while performing his duties. we never experienced that before Gras, we never want to experience that again in the future.”adds Pascal Bollore, the head of the legal unit of the union.

*Names have been changed