A judicial investigation was opened for “willful violence by a person holding public authority”, nearly a year after the arrest by the police of Gabriel, a teenager who had been seriously injured in the eye in May 2020 in Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis). He was then 14 years old. An examining magistrate will therefore investigate the conditions of this arrest while the young man was trying to steal a scooter with a friend on the night of May 25 to 26, during the first confinement.
The judicial investigation was opened on April 19 “against X, on the count of willful violence by a person holding public authority that resulted in an ITT (total incapacity for work) more than eight days ”, according to the Bobigny prosecutor’s office. Two complaints had been lodged by the mother of the teenager and his lawyer: one with the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) on May 27, the other on June 2 with the Bobigny prosecutor’s office for “violence. in a meeting between persons holding public authority over a 15-year-old minor ”.
The teenager had been operated on so as not to lose his sight
The report of the medico-judicial unit (UMJ) of the hospital of Bondy, which is authentic in judicial matters, had diagnosed a fracture of the orbital floor of the young man’s left eye, and three teeth broken following the arrest. With 30 days of total work interruption (ITT). Gabriel had been operated on at Necker Hospital in Paris so as not to lose his sight.
According to the police officers’ version, the teenager had fled at the sight of the police before falling and resisting his arrest. A version swept away for a year by his lawyer, Maître Stéphane Gas: “It is materially impossible,” he explained in June 2020 to the Parisian. He would not only have had a fracture in several places on the floor of the orbit, but his nose would also have been affected. However, it is intact. According to his lawyer, Gabriel found himself “handcuffed and controlled by three policemen each weighing 70 kg while he weighs only 40 kg”.
In June 2020, the Minister of the Interior at the time, Christophe Castaner, said he was “troubled” by this affair. He had asked that “light be shed” on the charges against the police. An investigation had been launched by the IGPN.
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