Prison guard Arno Garcia loved a job that killed him. He was about to become a father, but that didn’t stop a French prison guard from filling in for a colleague on the fateful day of the risky transport of an important drug dealer and murderer from prison to court. He was one of two victims of an armed commando who ambushed a mobile phone van he was traveling in with a prisoner in France. He was 34 years old.
In addition to the deaths of two prison guards, Tuesday’s attack seriously injured three officers who were in a car carrying a mobile phone carrying Mohamed Amra, the head of the drug trafficking network. French authorities are on alert and preparing for a major operation to capture the criminals.
Arnaud Garcia grew up in the French commune of Blangy-le-Château as an only child after the sudden death of two sisters. In his free time, he rode his motorcycle and organized outdoor barbecues with his friends. Dominic Garcia, Arnaud’s father, said his son was called in “at the last minute” to replace a colleague. Arnault had been working as a prison guard since November 2009, and in April this year he decided to join the court escort service in Caen. Thanks to the new functions, he has more free time to help his wife, who is five months pregnant, he writes in his diary. Le Parisien.
Eric Dupont-Moretti, the French Minister of Justice, told the family the tragic news.
“I first called the prison administration, who refused to tell me what was happening. It was the justice minister who called me back to inform me of Arnaud’s death,” said the father of a prison guard, who believes the attack was deliberate. The second agent killed “left behind a wife and two children who were going to celebrate their 21st birthday in two days,” Eric Dupont-Moretti said.