- The Paris prosecution opened an investigation into manslaughter on Tuesday in order to "determine the exact circumstances of the intervention of the police services".
- Several NGOs have warned of the risks posed by the ventral plating technique.
- The technique is prohibited in several countries.
The images are certainly a little shaky, taken from a distance and fragmented, but shed light on the circumstances which led to the death of Cédric Chouviat. This 42-year-old delivery driver died on the night of Saturday to Sunday, less than 48 hours after an arrest for a simple traffic offense in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. On one of the videos broadcast by the lawyers for his relatives, we see the victim, motorcycle helmet on his head, held face down by three police officers who seem to put pressure on the chest while the delivery man's legs are agitated.
The autopsy revealed "an asphyxial manifestation with a fractured larynx", while emphasizing that the victim had a cardiovascular history. If it is too early to establish the direct responsibility of the police, the technique used that day to immobilize Cédric Chouviat - a ventral tackle otherwise called ventral decubitus - is already pointed out. "We will study the conditions of this intervention and we will draw all the technical conclusions," said Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Wednesday, on the sidelines of the wishes of the police union Unsa. And to specify: "If it is established that a technique, whatever it is, can generate the death of a man, obviously we will study the question of suspending it. "
A practice prohibited in several countries
This method consists of tackling and holding a person with their stomachs on the ground, head turned to the side. If it resists, other means of restraint can be added: weight in the back, handcuffing or immobilization of the ankles. Banned in several countries, like Belgium or Switzerland, because of its dangerousness, it has been, in recent years, very regularly pointed out in France, in particular during the Adama Traoré affair, in 2016 "If this technique is banned in several countries, it is primarily because it poses a lethal risk," insists Anne-Sophie Sempère, Liberties advocacy manager at Amnesty International. On the stomach, it restricts the ability to breathe, even more when pressure is exerted. »An increased danger due to the fact that hindered individuals tend to struggle when they lack oxygen which can push the police to increase the pressure and therefore the risk.
The NGO alerted public authorities in 2011 to this gesture of restraint. In 2016, Acat, the Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture, followed suit. If there are no official statistics, the organization counts four deaths linked to this technique between 2005 and 2015. In two of these cases - the deaths of Abdelhakim Ajimi in 2008 in Grasse and Serge Partouche in 2011 in Marseille - the police were sentenced to suspended prison terms. In both cases, they had used a throttle key, an aggravating factor for the risk of suffocation. In 2007, France was also sentenced by the European Court of Human Rights after the case of Mohamed Saoud, a Franco-Tunisian who died in 1998 of a cardio-respiratory arrest after being tackled on the stomach by two police officers .
The compression "must be as temporary as possible"
Today, ventral veneer remains authorized but strictly framed by a circular from the Ministry of the Interior from 2008, clarified in 2015. The document recalls that “when the immobilization of a person is necessary, compression - especially when 'it is exerted on the thorax or the abdomen - must be as momentary as possible be released as soon as the person is hampered. This will be one of the points at the heart of the investigation. According to Me Arié Alimi, one of the family's lawyers, witnesses to the scene report that the plating lasted nearly three minutes.
The other axis of the investigation should focus on the necessity and the proportionality of this gesture in relation to the situation. “In the Cédric Chouviat case, the choice of the use of force questions. The first videos published do not seem to show any imminent danger, ”deplores Anne-Sophie Sempère. The two video surveillance cameras present on the scene as well as the images shot by the victim before the tragedy, should make it possible to specify the circumstances of the arrest as well as the actions of the police.
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