Teen Fatally Stabbed in Paris Phone Robbery Attempt

Elias did not return home on Friday. Around 3 p.m. in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, the 14-year-old and a friend who was accompanying him after a football training session, were threatened by two other teenagers aged 16 and 17, "who coveted their mobile phones," reports Le Parisien. One of them stabbed Elias deeply in the shoulder. After committing the crime, the two assailants fled without taking the victim’s phone.

Immediately afterwards, his friend gave him first aid before alerting the emergency services. Elias was admitted to the hospital. Victim of internal bleeding that caused several cardiac arrests on Friday evening, the teenager died on Saturday morning. The BAC managed to identify and arrest the two suspects at their homes on Friday evening. They were taken into custody.

This tragedy elicited a reaction from the Minister of the Interior. "A 14-year-old boy died from knife blows from barbarians who wanted to steal his phone. We can only be horrified by this gratuitous violence, the result of a loss of bearings and the collapse of authority," reacted Bruno Retailleau. LR Senator and former minister Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée, an elected official in the district, issued a press release to denounce "the ghettoization of so many neighborhoods in the 14th," and accuse Carine Petit, the Green mayor of the 14th arrondissement and the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo of turning a blind eye to the "serious insecurity" that reigns there.