The driver died in January after a control tense operated by police officers. The transcripts of the recording of the scene have revived the debate on the interpellation.
In full mobilization global against the police violence, the latest twist of the case Chouviat has delivered some of the techniques of interpellation in the heart of the debate. Monday, Mediapart and The World have published a survey revealing the transcripts of the recording of the scene of interpellation made by the investigators, which is dramatically finished by the loss of knowledge of Cedric Chouviat, 42 years old, and then his death two days later in the hospital.
This survey revealed that the last words of the deliveryman on a motorcycle were “I choke”, repeated seven times. What to do an echo of the tragic death overseas of George Floyd under the knee of a policeman leaning on his neck. The Express returned on the latest twists and turns of the case.
Tackle to the ground deadly
On January 3, the father of the family has been the victim of a heart attack in the outskirts of the Eiffel Tower after having been tackled to the ground, helmet on the head, by three police officers after a traffic control tense.
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Transported in critical condition to the hospital, he died on 5 January as a result of asphyxia “with a fracture of the larynx,” according to the first elements of the post-mortem disclosed by the public prosecutor of Paris, who had opened a judicial investigation for “involuntary homicide”.
To reconstruct the scene, the expert of the Institute of Criminal Research of the Gendarmerie Nationale has analyzed thirteen videos of the arrest, nine shot by the driver himself, three recorded by one of the four police officers present at the time of the facts, and the last by a motorist.
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“Stop,” “I stop”, then “I choke” he repeated seven times in twenty seconds. These last words of Cedric Chouviat “were not heard” by the four police officers, said on Tuesday their lawyers Me Thibault de Montbrial and Me Laurent-Franck Liénard on LCI. They defend each two employees.
If this “I choke,” says seven times, is audible, this is because it has been ‘recorded by the headset-microphone” deliveryman, “close [his] mouth”, according to Me of Montbrial. The expert “supports the hypothesis” use of a headset by Cedric Chouviat, but without the “certify”.
the version of The police contradicted
While the version of the police state makes a “your disrespectful and aggressive” and violent behavior, the investigators note that “the exchange is relatively correct, even if we can feel a form of ‘provocation’ or of ‘no confidence’ in the words of the controlled person”.
in The course of the exchange, reconstituted in its last twelve minutes, the delivery person calls several times to the police “clowns” or one of them of the “poor guy”. The driver also told several times to the officers not to touch him as they ask him back. “Apart from the phase of arrest, we have not highlighted about the words or sounds egregious violence,” and, ” adds the expert. The latter notes that the security forces are trying to end multiple times to the control, before the situation degenerates. “Has 11mn 16s, the controlled person told the police officer that he is just a ‘horn’. The police decide to arrest him”, ” he says.
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“During the 22 seconds following, we hear different sounds that we can’t identify. The person arrested said several times ‘I choke’. And we hear one of the officers to declare ‘it is good, It is good, straps Ok’, he wrote then.
Already at the time of the incident, images were revealed by Mediapart and showed a situation is a priori quite different than that described by the officers involved. On the videos taken by motorists who attended the scene, Cedric Chouviat attempts to film the forces of law and order, but it has no gesture particularly aggressive. “I saw the filming of the control that he was police and I thought that was brave on his part, told one of the witnesses at the site of investigation. It is shocking because the police are hard on a man to the ground, without reason”.
The police officers heard in custody
A judicial investigation had been opened at that time to “manslaughter”. According to the first autopsy results disclosed in January by the prosecutor’s office in Paris, Cédric Chouviat died of asphyxiation “with a fracture of the larynx”.
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The four police officers were heard last Wednesday in police custody, prior to a possible indictment, a-t-on learned also Monday, sources judicial and close the folder. According to RTL, the investigating magistrate has convened “early July” and then they could be prosecuted.
Since the beginning of the case, the victim’s family has denounced a “police mistake” caused by technical arrest “dangerous”. She is requesting a reclassification of the facts in “voluntary violence with training&comthee; the dead”, a crime punishable foundation, and the suspension of the police officers.
The debate around the key bottlenecks, and tackle the ventral revived
on Tuesday during a press conference, the family has put pressure on the authorities. The relatives of Cedric Chouviat have asked the president and Emmanuel Macron, and the government to act resolutely against the police violence and called for re-suspension of officers accused in the case.
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“We expect a solemn response of the president and Emmanuel Macron,” said Sofia Chouviat, his daughter, during a press conference, because “we still can’t understand why [the four police officers] have not been suspended, we do not understand why the technique of apprehension”, a key bottleneck, “has still not been prohibited.”
“He was not violent. He was filming only the police. It seemed to do so to defend its rights, and it annoyed her, corroborates a second motorist. And then one of them passed behind him and made a key with his arm around his neck, he then fell to the ground. And there, they put three on him while he was on the belly. It was violent and incomprehensible.”
Read our complete file
violence and police brutality contrary to the French law
police Violence : activists chain to the grid of the ministry of the Interior police Violence in a Burger King : four CRS indicted in Death of Cedric Chouviat : “I choke,” repeated seven times, the driver to the police
Christophe Castaner announced at the beginning of June, during a press conference on police violence, the end of the teaching of the technique of the key bottlenecks in the police schools. In the Face of the anger triggered in the ranks of the police with this announcement, the minister of the Interior is finally back on its decision. The key bottlenecks will continue to be implemented” until such time as a new technique of interpellation is defined, announced on June 15, the chief of the national police.
