Knife-Wielding Man Shot by Police in Blois City Center, Investigation Underway

Thursday, April 21. Police officers from the Blois police station went to the city center, more precisely rue de la mare and rue des minimes after being informed of the presence of an individual armed with a knife, reports France info. On arrival, they found him bloodied from the chest to the waist at the entrance of the Bourg Neuf residence, in the ajar entrance of the building. The Moroccan was armed with a red and white kitchen knife. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the man began to move towards them in a "threatening" manner, despite the demands of the law enforcement officers to drop his weapon.

He then fled towards the corridors of the residence, until he jumped from a first-floor balcony to take refuge behind a fence. He refuses to surrender. After two LBD shots and another taser shot, one of the police officers had to use his service weapon. The man finally dropped his weapon, after a third LBD shot. He was rushed to the Blois hospital to receive the necessary care. On Saturday, the Blois prosecutor Frédéric Chevallier announced that he was "in a state of brain death".

The Blois public prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal investigation for attempted murder on police officers, in order to understand the reasons for this "totally erratic and incoherent" behavior of this Moroccan, holder of a student visa, who has been living in France since September 2021, precisely in a set of furnished apartments in Blois with other people. The latter explained to the investigators that for a few days, this man, "of a very calm nature, speaking French perfectly and very well integrated, was experiencing anxieties, of undetermined origins at this stage, so that he seemed totally disoriented, lost, making incoherent remarks and very upset". According to them, he had hastily left the accommodation on Thursday, with a knife in hand. He had just had a telephone conversation with his mother living in Casablanca.

Latest news, the Moroccan succumbed to his injuries. The man "targeted by the criminal investigation of attempted murder on police officers from the Blois police station has died (Saturday) at the Blois hospital," Blois prosecutor Frédéric Chevallier announced in a press release on Sunday.