Several complaints, including one for “acts of torture”, have been filed against a police company operating in Seine-Saint-Denis, which has been affected by several scandals in recent years and whose dissolution has been announced, AFP learned on Thursday, confirming some press reports.
The case was first revealed by the newspapers Libération and L’Humanité, which reported on it on Tuesday. According to their confessions, two men, aged 15 and 24 and unknown to each other, experienced violence, humiliation and humiliation on September 12 from police officers of the controversial security and intervention (CSI) company in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Promised dissolution by former Paris police prefect Didier Lallement
On Thursday, the Human Rights League issued a press release demanding the dismantling of this “structurally afloat” company, four police officers of whom were punished in June 2023 for false reports and, two of them, deliberate violence in a meeting by someone in a position of public authority.
Promised to be dissolved by former Paris police prefect Didier Lallement, the company was eventually reorganized and placed under the authority of CSI Paris. At AFP’s request, Paris police headquarters referred the matter to the Bobigny prosecutor’s office which is handling the case.
According to a complaint filed with the IGPN and the Bobigny prosecutor’s office in mid-September by the 15-year-old, who consulted with AFP, the teenager took cover in a trash room when he saw police officers and heard mortar fire near his building.
“A dozen blows with protective gloves”
While he was hiding, he was arrested and one of the police officers punched him “about ten times with protective gloves” and insulted him, according to one of the complaints, which also says inside the van where he was handcuffed, “hit in the face” with a baton from a police officer while “another hit him with a metal tear gas canister several times.”
“During this violence, one of the police officers filmed the minor and asked him to imitate animal sounds after each blow” and specifically “meow and then bark.” According to the boy’s lawyer, Me Pierre Brunisso, the acts of torture were justified by the “desire to humiliate” and the “duration” of the violence.
In her complaint, the second alleged victim stated that one of the police officers riding the motorbike “intentionally hit her with the front wheel on the left side of his motorbike” after she had just gotten off, understanding that the police officers following her “were there for (her).” He was then hit and “fell to the ground, unconscious.”
He later regained consciousness in the vehicle where he witnessed the blows delivered by “four police officers” to the teenager. When asked by AFP, the Bobigny prosecutor’s office did not respond.
