The prefect of police referred to the disciplinary council three police officers from a unit of the brigades for the repression of violent action motorcyclists (BRAV-M) who had threatened and humiliated young people arrested in Paris at the end of March. Four other officials were sanctioned with a warning, reported Monday, June 5, the police headquarters. “The police headquarters confirms to follow the recommendations of the general inspectorate of the national police [IGPN]”, she added, confirming information from BFM-TV.
Shortly after the revelation in the press on March 24 of an audio recording made by one of the arrested, the prefect of police of the capital, Laurent Nuñez, said he was “very shocked”, judging “unacceptable” these remarks which , “ethically, pose very serious problems”.
The head of the IGPN, Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, had declared herself, “as a citizen, terribly shocked” and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had affirmed that there would “obviously” be sanctions against the police. .
In the conclusions of its administrative investigation made at the beginning of May, the “police of the police” had accused the officials of one or more breaches, including the duty to set an example, the obligation of courtesy towards the public, the violation to the credit of the national police and the duty to protect the person arrested.
The warning is a disciplinary sanction of the first group, the lowest in the public service, and is not the subject of any mention in the file of the agent. Before a disciplinary council, the police potentially incur heavier penalties, from temporary exclusion for one day to dismissal, which is much rarer.
Judicial investigation still ongoing
On the night of March 20 to 21, members of BRAV-M arrested seven young demonstrators, suspected of having taken part in degradations in a wild procession in the center of Paris. One of the arrested had then discreetly recorded the exchanges with the police.
“The next time we come, you won’t get on the bus to go to the police station, you’ll get on another thing called an ambulance to go to the hospital”, threatens in particular a policeman at the place of a Chadian student, Souleyman Adoum Souleyman, particularly targeted by officials in the registry. In his complaint, the latter reported that a police officer “grabbed him by the sex” and insulted him by throwing at him, “You don’t even have balls. »
In reports to their hierarchy of BRAV-M agents who intervened on the evening of the facts, obtained by Agence France-Presse, they pleaded “physical and moral fatigue”. A brigadier thus described “fourteen hour shifts, even sixteen hours” during which, he said, their “basic and vital needs were not respected, hydrating and eating was very complicated”. A judicial investigation, also entrusted to the IGPN, is still ongoing in this case.
Called for by several deputies from La France insoumise, the dismantling of the BRAV-M, recently implicated in several cases of police violence, was never considered by Mr. Nuñez. “The behavior of a few individuals should not bring shame on a whole unit which, in recent years, and particularly at this time, proves its usefulness,” he said.
