Confusion and brutality reigned on Wilson's Wharf during the night of the music festival. This is evident from the testimony of 148 plaintiffs after the controversial police operation on June 21, when Steve Maia Caniço disappeared.

Consulted by the Journal du Dimanche, these testimonies collected following a call from the association Média'Son (intermediary between the authorities and the organizers of free parties) give the measure of the violence that has fallen during a half -hour by the river. Half an hour of chaos during which the police refused, according to many testimonies, to help the young - often drunk - who, trying to flee the cloud of tear gas, fell in the Loire.

In total, a dozen young people who came to party on Wilson Pier fell into the water that night. Steve Maia Caniço is one of them. His body was found there last July 30, without the IPGN establishing a "link between the police intervention and [his] disappearance".

The Loire as "the only escape"

"And there, without summation of gas everywhere, both from below and from above" recounts a witness, returning to the beginning of the charge. Among the 148 testimonies, all those who come back to the beginning of the intervention point out that at no time did they hear the police tell anyone before the tear gas can be fired in the middle of the crowd. was gathered on the platform.

That night, the sound system was allowed to play until 4 am on Wilson Wharf. All of them complied with the curfew, with the exception of one - west of the wharf - who ventured to make one last song. According to a cluster of clues including testimonials and amateur videos, the police intervention would have started at 4:30 on this part of the wharf. The fright however quickly gained the east of the dock, reports the JDD, where the speakers had been extinguished for a good twenty minutes.

At this place, who came to help the civil protection to rescue "a person drunk and unconscious", a witness says: "we got gassed and we had to transport ourselves the young man in the truck, from civil protection while the gas was burning our throats. "

Another, busy with the equipment of the neighboring sound system, relates how, as he was coming out of his truck with friends, the police "bombarded" them.

According to the controversial report of the IGPN, the first salvo of teargas grenades took place around 4:37. Nevertheless, another version, confirmed by the testimonies that could consult the JDD, estimates that at this hour "the chemical cloud" had already covered the quay Wilson, estimating the beginning of the operation towards 4:32 maximum.

According to another testimony, the police began to "load from the road, upstream of the river to the wharf, leaving as the only escape the Loire," as if they were "cattle".

Some were just sleeping on the dock, exhausted after a party that began in the middle of the afternoon. "Awakened in panic", these "ran into the tear gas cloud without knowing where to go." Was Steve among those sleepy party goers? This is what some of his relatives had said, insisting that he let him sleep near the sound system where the assault started, and convinced that their friend, surprised by the gas in his sleep, had finally fallen in the river.

"It's not our job, it's firefighters"

Two of the 148 witnesses themselves fell in the river, says the JDD. Both fell backwards while trying to escape from the tear gas. Both spent about 20 minutes in the river before being rescued.

Eighteen witnesses said they saw people falling in the river that night, and most said they also called for help from the police. In vain. "When we went to see the police to tell them that there were people in the water, we were sent to walk": "you break or we embarked" they were answered, ensures a witness.

Another one recalls his memory: while they were ten near the water watching a man struggling in the river, participants asked for help from the police who would have answered, "it's is not our job, it's firefighters. "

All the witnesses, most of whom are still shocked, report a wave of unjustified violence. "Two shooters were targeting people's heads with their LBD, they were targeting people who were cornered facing the Loire," said one of the witnesses, while another said, "it's still painful in my mind, I saw violent and gratuitous attacks in my life, but this one was completely unfounded. "

During the police operation, which lasted from 4:30 to 4:52, 33 teargas grenades, 10 grenades deencclement and 12 shots of launchers of defense balls (LBD) were released on the crowd, says the JDD.

On July 3rd, 89 of the 148 witnesses interviewed filed a collective complaint for "endangering the lives of others and intentional violence by persons holding public authority".