Four former police officers from the Seine-Saint-Denis Security and Intervention Company are on trial for violence, theft and forgery. These are the facts that exposed the illegal methods of this unit.
A control that turns to a beating. The video had circulated widely on social networks in the summer of 2020, causing controversy around the “ripoux” methods used by police officers from the Seine-Saint-Denis Security and Intervention Company (CSI 93). At the time, the Paris police chief announced the dissolution of the CSI 93. A reorganization of the company had finally been decided.
Four of them are tried this Thursday before the Bobigny Criminal Court for “violence”, “theft by a person holding public authority”, “false” and “arbitrary attack on individual freedom”, namely two arbitrary arrests in which violence had been committed.
bag of drugs
On May 30, 2019, in Saint-Ouen, a crew from the CSI 93 toured the city center and carried out random identity checks. Young people submit to it without question. But without Jonathan realizing, Chief Sergeant Riahd B. places a bag at his feet with the grass inside, before picking it up and pretending to find drugs. This allows him to justify this control.
“If you wanted a reason for control, here is one”, launches the young man the brigadier-in-chief.
Jonathan protests. He is then tackled to the ground and beaten. The police arrest him for contempt and violence against a person holding public authority. “He thought he was going to die,” says Me Raffaëlle Guy, his lawyer. Victim of a strangulation key, he had a broken rib, which earned him 10 days of total incapacity for work (ITT). “But the trauma is not measured in ITT”, continues his lawyer.
Videos from the scene
Another man, Louqmane saw it all, the policeman placing the bag at the foot of the young man, and the violence. He also took out his phone and filmed everything. One of the chief brigadier’s teammates realizes this and snatches his device and the police beat him. He too is arrested.
Placed in police custody, Jonathan and Louqmane denounce the violence they have suffered. A grocery store camera will save them. The police control was fully filmed and the images show the violence committed by the police. A preliminary investigation is opened and entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police.
Six police officers were arrested on June 29, 2020. Placed in police custody, they were quickly indicted. An audit of the procedures carried out by the agents of the CSI 93 is also carried out to find any other complaints that may have been lodged against the company.
Other proceedings still in progress
From this case emerged about twenty other legal proceedings concerning similar facts. During the investigation, sound systems had been conducted in the car and the locker room of CSI 93. Drugs had also been discovered near the parking lot of the unit. Violence, theft, possession of narcotics or even falsification of reports in the context of an investigation, some are accused of having set up a system of extortion of the inhabitants of the districts. The investigation is still in progress.
In 2021, two police officers from the CSI 93 were sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence and a five-year ban from practicing and two others received a four-month suspended prison sentence for an intervention in the White -Mesnil. Another official from this unit will be tried before an assize court. His victim, a young man who recognized a drug dealer in Saint-Ouen, fought for the title that he is being prosecuted for “false writing by a person holding public authority”.
“My clients have accepted correctionalization, specifies Mr. Guy. They wish that they were no longer police officers.”
The four defendants are no longer police officers. Their judicial control prohibits them from exercising the profession of policeman. They have been deprived of salary since July 3, 2020. The disciplinary council of the Paris police headquarters proposed sanctions in an opinion issued last year. A decision must be made soon.
