The Paris Assize Court acquitted this Wednesday evening a CRS judged for having thrown a grenade which blinded a trade unionist during a demonstration in 2016. A decision rendered in a stormy atmosphere and with cries of “Police everywhere, zero justice go”.
After three and a half hours of deliberation, the court considered that the 54-year-old brigadier-in-chief, Alexandre M., could benefit from a cause of criminal irresponsibility, having acted in a state of self-defense.
While the president of the court Catherine Sultan tried to continue reading the deliberations, a clamor rose in the public, where the supporters of the trade unionist Laurent Theron had massed, who lost the use of his right eye for good. .
A civil party to the trial, this 53-year-old hospital secretary and activist of the Sud-Santé union immediately took the road to the exit, his supporters continuing to chant in the direction of the court and the jurors “Shame on you”, “Impunity permed”.
The police officer Alexandre M. went out with his lawyer Laurent-Franck Liénard through a small door.“This verdict is a real relief for our client who had been sued for six long years. It is a fair and legal decision.“, reacted to AFP Me Liénard.
The CRS has always defended a “legitimate” fire, in reaction to the throwing of projectiles by “hostile groups” on the Place de la République in Paris on September 15, 2016, when it dispersed with its company a procession of opponents to the labor law.
Laurent Theron “posed no danger”he had “The hands in the pockets” when he received a pebble from a disencirclement hand grenade (GMD) in the face, recalled his lawyer Lucie Simon, denouncing “a decision of pure emotion“.“We didn’t go on the side of right, we went on the side of fear, sensationalism“, she reviled.
The judges therefore did not follow the requisitions of the public prosecutor. The prosecution had asked the court to find Alexandre M. guilty of willful violence by a person holding public authority which resulted in permanent disability, considering that the police officer was neither “in imminent danger” nor in “state of self-defence”.
Advocate General Christophe Auger had requested two to three years of suspended imprisonment, as well as a ban on carrying a weapon for five years. However, he had not requested the revocation of the CRS, as claimed by the civil party.
At the time of the throwing of the de-encirclement hand grenade, a dangerous and regulated weapon now removed from the arsenal of law enforcement, “the climate was much less tense“, had argued the representative of the public ministry. “A disencirclement grenade is when you are surrounded, when you are attacked in a precise way. It is not made to disperse a crowd at any cost“, he had pressed.
In addition, Alexandre M., who had just joined his company after twenty years as a night police station, was neither trained in maintaining order nor authorized to launch GMD, added the magistrate.
In his defence, the brigadier-chief had insisted on the climate of “outbreak of violence“from a”nebula“who had, all day,”tried to kill policemen”. He always claimed to have received a projectile on the arm, and heard before his throw, a “noise of glass” which he likened to a jet of Molotov cocktail which “missed” its target.
“I wanted to protect my men“, hammered at the bar the policeman, defending”the absolute necessity” of his shot, only admitting to having “missed” his gesture, the grenade not having taken the “good direction”.“I think society is shooting itself in the foot by asking for condemnation.” of the CRS, had replied Me Liénard. condemn him,”it’s castrating all the CRS”, “they will no longer be able to use grenades“.
With AFP
