“He got out of his car, he came up to me and said, ‘Look down.’ I didn’t look down. He handcuffed me, took me away. At the post, he hit my legs, arms, hand for two or three minutes with his stick. At the end he said to me: ‘Next time, you won’t look at me anymore’. » Kévin*, 17, leaves the search room at the Pantin police station in tears. We are July 20, 2019, late afternoon. The young man is handcuffed on the bench despite his complaints: his swollen hand hurts him. He will have to wait until 10:30 p.m. to be finally taken to the hospital. His police custody for “contempt and rebellion” is interrupted: his left hand is broken, he leaves with 45 days of temporary interruption of work (ITT).
Names marked with an asterisk have been changed.
To cover himself, Chief Sergeant Christian M., group leader of the Territorial Contact Brigade (BTC) of the Quatre-Chemins district in Pantin, puts down on the minutes a story that goes well: the young man would have tried to s take on a policewoman and, moved by his courage, the policeman would have saved her from a bad step by hitting the young man on the left hand. A version denied by the peacekeeper. After this case, she testified before the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN): “I preferred to change units before a tragedy happened”. However, according to numerous testimonies, many other dramas have obviously arrived. Miners burned in the face by the effect of tear gas thrown for no reason. Those “tazés” with insistence on the thigh in the car or in the back to make them move forward. And brigadier Julien S. nicknamed ” Electrician “ who exults: “So, does fat hurt?” “.
Search rooms filled with blood
There were those, taken to the station and beaten up in the jails, broken limbs, bruises, lost teeth, humiliations, dozens of days of ITT accumulated. In the Pantin police station, “the excavation rooms are filled with blood to the ceiling, testifies a peacekeeper before the IGPN. The violence takes place on the verification bench but also in the search room. It is always the BTC Quatre-Chemins that hits the arrested. They drag them to the search room and afterwards, we hear them screaming. »
They drag them to the search room and afterwards, we hear them screaming.
And what about those taken along the canal to spend a bad quarter of an hour there, before being abandoned? These young people aged 14 to 16, laid bare in the garbage room or handcuffed to a parking post for an hour and whose pouches of ‘shit’ are stolen? BTC Quatre-Chemins would also leave “hunt” in the territories of other police stations and applies the same practices: “They leave the young people half dead in the halls of buildings, they gas them, rape them, steal the narcotic to stick it to young people from Pantin”, confess a policeman.
When in February 2019, Kevin was taken to the station for the umpteenth time by the same brigade, he admitted to the judicial police officer, “sell narcotics but that the narcotic placed under seal was not the one he had in his possession. “, Can we read in the report drawn up then by a judicial police officer. A lunar exchange takes place between the young offender and the policeman:
– I represent to you the cannabis resin apprehended during your arrest. Does this belong to you?
– No, those are not mine. Me what I sell is in bigger blisters with white closures. The narcotic in the sachets I sell is not the same as the one you are showing me. I know where these come from.
– Where do they come from ?
– From the place of the church of Pantin.
– How do you know ?
– Because I know people who buy there. Each narcotics point of sale has its own packaging and product. And that’s not what we sell at Scandicci.
But who is going to be interested and take seriously the declarations and complaints of young delinquents? Against the background of the fight against drugs in the cities, the BTC Quatre-Chemins and in particular six police officers, thus imposes its law at the cost of a limitless violence and practices out of control. The Scandicci district, known as the nerve center of cannabis trafficking in the area, is particularly targeted by this ” policy “. A war against the “deal points” launched by the former commissioner Frédéric Ségura, who is pleased with the results thus obtained.
“In 2018, I had a goal of occupying the land on the Scandicci estate to reduce the facts of drug trafficking. This action has borne fruit in terms of statistics, even on a daily basis because I rubbed shoulders with the BTC Quatre-Chemins to give them positive feedback from residents and donors.. The media wrote about this action in a positive way which was almost fulfilled. BTC did an amazing job on the target I requested. They had imposed themselves fairly quickly on the city “ justifies the former commissioner, auditioned by the IGPN.
“There had been local police work with the guards in order to take possession of these places without being ambushed”, he defends himself. A local work so effective that one of the guards filed a complaint for intentional violence, supported by witnesses who recognized the policeman who hit the guard in the chest while he was taking out the trash. He had first taken it for another, then, apparently annoyed at having been wrong, had become angry. Result: 21 days of temporary interruption of work.
“The Commissar’s Babies”
According to the other police officers, Superintendent Segura had set up “a kind of war between us, the war of numbers, testified a policeman. The commissioner had put BTC on a pedestal. » Those who were nicknamed “the commissioner’s babies”such “the former head of department Commissioner Ségura gave them all the powers”, confirms another peacekeeper.
There’s not a kid hanging around the city who hasn’t already gotten his ass kicked.
Indeed, when we look at the statistics of availability – bringing people back to the police station – the BTC Quatre-Chemins is remarkably efficient. Figures almost three times higher than their colleagues. “The only unit that was motivated to put a blow in the anthill”, claims Frédéric Segura who recognizes himself: “ I was following this closely to feed the news flashes. » Commissioner Ségura, who says he was never aware of these practices, does not seem to take measuring the extent of the problem as long as the results are there. A reaction that is reminiscent of his attitude in Champigny-sur-Marne faced with a brigadier accused – and since convicted – of sexual harassment by his female colleagues.
“The objective of the BTC is to gain the trust of local residents and partners in order to collect operational information” can we read in a notice formalizing the objectives of this brigade. However, when Frédéric Segura goes to the Val-de-Marne, the news inherits a blaze on the edge of l’implosion.
The situation is so tense between police and neighborhood residents that riots burst at the start of confinement. Out of revenge, out of anger “barricades were erected to prevent the progress of the troops and they were the subject of projectiles. In the Scandicci district on the night of April 2 to 3, the BTC crew was the victim of an ambush with mortar fire,” notes the commissioner in a report dated April 17, 2020, sent to the public prosecutor, in which she denounces “serious facts likely to be criminalized involving personnel from the BTC Quatre-Chemins of the CSP of Pantin”.
Police still on duty
Internally, many police officers from the police station attribute the origin of these riots to the attitude of the brigade. The Commissioner collects statements from staff and conducts a discreet internal investigation in particular on the narcotics regularly discovered in the cupboards of the BTC and which are found a few days later in the seizures of people in custody swearing that these products do not belong to them. A caïd of the city, arrested, complains to the commissioner: “When you play, you lose, that’s the rule. But going to the chtar (1) for a bag that has been put on your back, that is driving you mad” and then “It’s torture, they’re going after the little ones, it’s going too far, there’s not a kid hanging around the city who hasn’t already been beaten up”.
“Chtar”, slang word for prison.
The commissioner then writes her report, which triggers the investigation. Contacting identified victims. The analysis of procedures tainted with forgery. But the investigation will be limited to the facts denounced by the commissioner without exploring the suspicions of corruption. Several witnesses claimed, however, that for 3,000 euros, BTC Quatre-Chemins was under orders. None search will take place, no telephone or computer referrals. But “The facts predate the investigation. These acts would have brought nothing more, especially since these police officers were quickly transferred, defends Loïc Pageot, prosecutor of Bobigny in charge of the file. All the investigations used were made by the IGPN,” he concludes.
Result: only acts of voluntary and false violence in public writing are retained. Worse, the six police officers are still on duty. According to the Les Jours website, who contacted the Paris police headquarters, no administrative sanction has been decided against them. At the latest news, that is, at the time of their invitation sent on February 9, 2022:
- The peacekeeper Marc-Henri S., is on the staff of the Departmental Night Bac 93
- Peacekeeper Yassine B., is at the BAC in Montreuil (93)
- The goalkeeper Damien P. is at the real-time judicial processing brigade in Villepinte (93)
- Chief Brigadier Christian M. is at the General Staff of the administrative building guard unit
- The guard Raphaël I., one of the most violent, is assigned to the local reception and investigation service (SAIP) at the Epinay-sur-Seine police station (93)
- Brigadier Julien S. is at the BAC of Charleville-Mézières.
Their trial, which opens this Wednesday, May 31 at the Bobigny court, will last three days. The police risk up to ten years in prison.
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