Following a harrowing attack that sent shockwaves across the European continent, and which saw a 73-year-old and her 7-year-old granddaughter viciously assaulted at the entrance of their home in Bordeaux, France, on the evening of Monday, June 19th, police have managed to track down and arrest the suspect.
The suspect has been identified as 29-year-old French national Brahima B., a repeat offender who had previously been known to the authorities for at least 15 criminal convictions, including theft, drugs offenses, and death threats; more than twenty mentions in police files which identify people implicated in criminal cases; and severe psychiatric problems, France 3 reports.
A video of the attack, filmed by a building’s intercom camera, has circulated broadly across social media platforms and shows the perpetrator, who was loitering in the area, force his way into the doorway of the building in broad daylight. He then rips the elderly woman and child outside, violently throws them to the ground, appears to consider kidnapping the child, then steals what he can before he flees the scene.
Shortly after being arrested and placed into police custody on charges of home invasion, attempted kidnapping and kidnapping, violence against a vulnerable person and a minor under the age of 15, he was transferred by authorities to Charles Perrens Hospital where was placed on a psychiatric hold.
The public prosecutor of Bordeaux told the press that “the person concerned has major behavioral problems linked to a psychotic and schizophrenic pathology” and at the time of the attack “he was, according to relatives, out of the care of a doctor.” The prosecutor added that as soon as the suspect’s mental health is stabilized, he shall be remanded to police custody.
The attack, described by France’s mainstream liberal press as a “rare act of violence,” has prompted strong reactions and fierce debate on security among the country’s political class, who’ve denounced the assault on the vulnerable pair in their own home as a “shameful” act of aggression.
Marine Le Pen, president of the Rassemblement National (RN) group in the National Assembly, said that violent attacks on the vulnerable at the hands of illegal migrants, asylum seekers, and repeat offenders have become increasingly common in France, and called on the government, which she suggested is complacent, to take swift action to remedy the problem.
“The images of a little girl and her grandmother attacked in broad daylight in Bordeaux are unbearable. These attacks are daily and insecurity, aggravated by the migratory chaos, is becoming endemic,” Le Pen said. “How many videos like this does it take for the power to react?”
Éric Zemmour, the leader of Reconquête, also reacted to the attack on Twitter, writing: “How awful! This is what they have done to our country. French, wake up!’”
President of Les Republicains Éric Ciotti, for his part, called the attack a revolting act of aggression.
“Revolting attack on a little girl and her grandmother in the middle of the street in Bordeaux by a repeat offender. The images are heavy with meaning,” he wrote on Twitter.
