Suspected of police excesses, they find themselves on the bench of the defendants. Six members of a local brigade from Pantin, in Seine-Saint-Denis are on trial this Wednesday, May 31. The facts of which they are accused date from 2019 and 2020.
These police officers are suspected of having fired tear gas “free“, in addition to punches and truncheons without justification. They would also have written false reports and carried out illegal night searches.
The members of the unit in question, aged 30 to 48, are specially responsible for monitoring sensitive neighborhoods. It is one of the two territorial contact brigades (BTC), in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis).
The defendants are notably prosecuted on May 31 for “violence by a persononne depositary of public authority” et “false in public writing or genuine“.
The proliferation of complaints about the actions of BTC Quatre-Chemins had prompted the opening of a judicial inquiry. It had been entrusted in 2020 to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN). The Police Department wanted to clarify the methods of this unit. Its mission was to collect information in the neighborhoods, while having a certain freedom of action.
Several facts are alleged against these BTC Quatre-Chemins police officers, between 2019 and 2020. They were in charge of the Scandicci and Courtillières estates, known to host drug trafficking. One of the defendants, accused of the greatest number of acts of violence in the file, did not appear at the hearing on the grounds that he has now left the national police and cannot be released because of his “professional obligations“.
The investigation revealed a number of acts of violence against young people, false reports or faked arrests. Of the eight police officers taken into custody at the start of 2021, the prosecution has initiated proceedings against six of them.
For this first day of hearing, the court notably looked into the fracture of the hand with a truncheon of a young person within the police station, causing him 45 days of total incapacity for work (ITT).
“He says to me ‘put your hand on the table, otherwise I will hit your legs’ (…). He started knocking I said no, no! At that time, the other policeman grabbed my hand to hold it and hit me on it“, described the victim, a regular in police custody.
Charges swept aside before the judges by Chief Brigadier Christian M., a portly 48-year-old Guyanese, who describes himself as “the nicest in the police station“: “It wasn’t very strong, maybe it’s fragile“, he argued, struggling at the helm.
The trial is to be held until June 2.
With AFP
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