The trial will take place five years after the events. On the night of June 21 to 22, 2019, Steve Maia Caniço drowned in the Loire during a police operation during the music festival. The commissioner who led this operation will answer to the charge of manslaughter. He is the only one indicted in this case.
He will be the only accused in this trial which will be held before the Rennes judicial court. Grégoire Chassaing, currently stationed in Clermont-Ferrant, was the officer in charge of this police operation on the night of June 21 to 22, 2019, on Quai Wilson in Nantes.
It was shortly after 4 a.m., around twenty police officers had intervened to stop the music at this place where several electro scenes had been set up. One of them continued to broadcast her music beyond the legal schedule while the others packed up their equipment.
Under the orders of Commissioner Chassaing, the police used tear gas grenades on this quay on the island of Nantes which overlooks the Loire.
At the end of the night and blinded by the gas cloud, 14 partygoers fell into the river. Steve Maia Caniço was among them. He didn’t know how to swim. His body was found a few weeks later, not far from there.
A long investigation made it possible to establish, via the victim’s telephone, that his fall in the Loire was indeed concomitant with the intervention of the police.
Several people were heard and, initially, implicated, including the prefect at the time, Claude d’Harcourt and his sub-prefect of Nantes. Ultimately, only Commissioner Chassaing will be judged for the death of Steve Maia Caniço, a 24-year-old after-school activity leader.
The trial will therefore be held in Rennes, from June 10 to 14, 2024. Rennes where this case had been “disoriented” in order to avoid Nantes magistrates having to investigate a case which involves police officers with whom they work on a daily basis.
Commissioner Chassaing’s lawyer, Maître Louis Cailliez, told AFP that he would plead for acquittal “because my client is not criminally responsible for this tragedy and the elements constituting involuntary manslaughter have not been characterized. We trust the justice system to calmly apply the law far from the regrettable media untruths which have unjustly tarnished its honor in recent years.”
Last December, when the referral of the police officer to the Rennes criminal court was announced, the lawyer for Steve’s family declared: “For the civil parties and the family of Steve Maia Caniço, the fact that the investigation ends with the signing of an order by two investigating judges which refers the police officer Grégoire Chassaing to the criminal court is a great relief.”
At the time of the events, many voices were raised to denounce the disproportion of the means implemented by the police that night and the lack of discernment in such a dangerous place.
2024-01-20 21:40:52
#Death #Steve #Commissioner #Chassaing #June #Rennes #manslaughter
