Two police officers were filmed violently attacking a man in police custody.
Two police officers will be tried on October 29 for intentional violence by a person in a position of public authority, facts dating back to July 24. Video surveillance images, revealed by Release This Thursday, they show them beating a 42-year-old man in police custody in Paris. He had been arrested for contempt during an identity check during the Paris Olympics.
One of the officers is accused of first slapping the man in custody while he was handing over his personal belongings. He then allegedly hit him several times with a telescopic baton, leaving the victim with a broken forearm bone, as well as hitting him with a key, causing an injury to the eyebrow, while he was taking the man back to his cell. Laughter can be heard on the videos and seems to attest to the inaction of some colleagues. Injured in his cell, the victim allegedly asked for treatment. Initially unsuccessful, the man allegedly began writing “help” in Spanish with the blood from his injury on the wall of his cell.
The second officer allegedly slapped him several times while the victim was waiting on a chair to be taken to hospital following the first series of violence. He also allegedly punched him in the head and hit him about a dozen times in the lower body. He is accused of assault resulting in an ITT of more than eight days.
One of the two police officers involved in another case
The man of Peruvian origin filed a complaint and according to his lawyers, the “initial ITT” were “estimated at 45 days”. The two officers were then taken into custody on August 7, then brought before the court two days later and then placed under judicial supervision. The two accused are aged 25 and 33 respectively. The first accused is also being prosecuted for malicious denunciation because he in turn filed a complaint against the victim for acts of willful violence. According to his lawyer, with BFMTV“there is the shock of the images, but there is no sound, nor the overall context in which his client was being constantly insulted and provoked by the person in custody.”
Furthermore, the prosecution specified that this is not the first time that this police officer has been involved in such a case. In 2022, he allegedly used tear gas on five occasions on a woman he was supposed to escort home after she refused to file a complaint.