- The victim's family calls on the government to end the controversial police technique.
- Analysis of the videos revealed that Cédric Chouviat had repeated "J'étouffe" seven times.
- The police were heard during the police custody.
In a clear voice, Sofia Chouviat speaks to the crowd of journalists huddled in the office of one of her lawyers. Five months after the death of her father, Cédric, a 42-year-old delivery man who suffered a heart attack following his arrest, the young woman has questions. Two exactly, directly addressed to the President of the Republic. “With my brothers and sisters, we still do not understand why the four police officers who killed my father were not suspended, why the intervention technique has not yet been prohibited. During this press conference, organized on Tuesday, the relatives of this father of five called "solemnly" Emmanuel Macron to ban the bottleneck, a legal but controversial practice.
The first elements of the autopsy had revealed in January that Cédric Chouviat had died of “asphyxia” linked to a fractured larynx. The analysis of thirteen videos - nine of which were made by the delivery man himself - added to the file at the end of March made it possible to reconstruct what was originally just a routine traffic check. In their conclusions, revealed on Monday by Le Monde and Médiapart and which 20 Minutes was able to consult, the experts of the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie noted that this exchange which lasts 12 minutes "is relatively correct, even if we can feel a form of “provocation” or “distrust” in the words of the controlled person ”. On several occasions, Cédric Chouviat describes the police as "clowns" or "poor guys". When he asked one of the officials to say "please", he was hardly more courteous. "You think I'm going to get on all fours I'm going to suck your dick too," he replies.
"I choke", a petition pronounced seven times
The discussion took a new turn after 11 minutes and 23 seconds when one of the police decided to arrest him. The scene, indicate the soldiers, lasts only 22 seconds but on seven occasions Cédric Chouviat will repeat "J'étouffe" without the officials reacting. Victim of a heart attack, he died two days later in the hospital. The police, according to their lawyers, did not hear the victim call for help. "If they had heard these words, obviously they would have stopped fighting immediately," LCI told Me Thibaut de Montbrial. In his report, the expert noted that these words could have been recorded by the microphone of the victim's helmet, which implies that they may have been spoken in a low voice. "My son was not given a chance, he died on the pavement of Paris, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower," said the father of the victim indignantly before questioning the president in turn. "Mr. Macron, you must ban the throttle key or you are a murderer." "
In early June the Minister of the Interior announced at a press conference that this police technique was going to be abandoned. But a few days later, Frédéric Veaux, the director general of the national police, informed his teams in a short note that the throttling key, which makes it possible to challenge an individual who resists by exerting pressure on the neck , could finally be used "with discernment" until September 1, pending the definition of an alternative method. "For Cédric, it's too late, but I think it's a great opportunity for the government to get around the table," insisted his widow, Doria Chouviat, calling on the government to "feed on its mistakes." "
The family requests the reclassification
“There is a paradoxical and perverse effect of the ventral plating, analyzes Me William Bourdon, one of the family's lawyers, when you put someone on the ground he struggles because he suffocates and […] the police, caught in the mechanics of the obsession with immobilization, insanely do the opposite of what they should do ”and strive instead of releasing the pressure. Last Wednesday, the four police officers implicated in the death of the forties were placed in police custody. Long heard by the IGPN, in charge of the investigation, they could be summoned in early July with a view to possible indictment.
Our file on violence
The family claims that the facts of "manslaughter" be reclassified as "intentional violence resulting in death without intention to give it", a crime punishable by assize. If Me Arié Alimi, another family lawyer, praised the “colossal work” of the examining magistrates, he deplored the “very significant pressure”, notably on the part of the police unions, with the authorities on these questions. "They should not ask the public authorities to reconsider techniques which kill every day", protests the council.
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- Cedric Chouviat