3 French Gendarmes Killed After Responding to Reports of Domestic Abuse

PARIS — A gunman killed three law enforcement officials who have been responding early Wednesday to studies of an episode of home violence in central France, the authorities stated.

The officers had been known as to the scene in an remoted hamlet close to Saint-Just, a small city within the Puy-de-Dôme area of France, about 50 miles southeast of Clermont-Ferrand, to assist a girl who was being overwhelmed by her accomplice, in keeping with the French Interior Ministry.

The man shot on the officers once they arrived, killing a primary officer, recognized by the ministry as Arno Mavel, 21, and wounding a second one within the thigh. The gunmen additionally opened hearth at two different officers as they approached the home. Both of them, recognized by the ministry as Cyrille Morel, 45, and Rémi Dupuis, 37, have been killed.

The officers have been members of France’s gendarmerie — the pressure that oversees smaller cities and rural or suburban areas.

Police reinforcements shortly cordoned off the realm and the gendarmerie’s elite intervention squad was nonetheless looking for the shooter, who has not been recognized.

“At this hour, operations are ongoing,” the inside ministry stated. “Everything is being done to arrest the individual and protect the neighboring populations.”

François Chautard, the mayor of Saint-Just, advised the BFM TV information channel that the officers had been shot after arriving on the scene of a home dispute, and that the gunman then set the home on hearth.

“The house is totally destroyed by the fire,” Mr. Chautard stated, including of the suspect, “They don’t know if he is in the ruins or if he escaped.”

The Interior Ministry stated in its assertion that the “tragic circumstances of these deaths remind us, once again, of the risks that gendarmes and police officers are exposed to when they carry out their daily duties.”