Belly tackle, an internationally decried police technique

"I can't breathe, I can't breathe." In July 2014, a video showed the circumstances of the death of Eric Garner during an arrest in New York. Pressed to the ground and held to the ground by five police officers, this 43-year-old asthmatic died by asphyxiation after repeatedly shouting "I can't breathe". This tragic event, catalyst for the #BlackLivesMatter anti-racism movement in the United States, is neither the first nor the last of its kind.

In France, several deaths have been attributed to this immobilization technique taught in the police and gendarmerie school. We think of Adama Traoré, who died in 2017 from an "asphyxia syndrome" on the day of his 24th birthday. But also to Mohamed Boukrourou, Mohamed Saoud, Lamine Dieng, Abdelhakim Ajimi. The list is not exhaustive.

Latest case to date: Cédric Chouviat. This 42-year-old delivery boy from Ile-de-France died on January 5 after being arrested in Paris. Immobilized on the ground by three officers, he had a heart attack and died 48 hours later. According to the first elements of the autopsy, he was the victim of asphyxia "with a fractured larynx". According to the family and his lawyers, Cédric Chouviat died suffocated under the weight of the police officers, at the time of the plating. Upon investigation to invalidate or confirm it. But this police technique remains strongly contested.

Following this tackle, Cédric died of hypoxia (lack of oxygen) which led to cardiac arrest and brain death. pic.twitter.com/kKopDKJj5M

A practice banned since the 1980s in Los Angeles and New York

Plating on the ground, or "ventral decubitus", consists in firmly pressing a person on the ground and keeping him in this position, using a great pressure on the chest. The police sometimes add to this position other means of restraint, such as handcuffing the wrists behind the back and immobilizing the ankles.

The use of this technique in France is indicative of an "Americanization of the methods of arrest in France", denounced during a press conference William Bourdon, one of the lawyers of the Chouviat family. However, in the United States, several cities have banned his practice because of its dangerousness.

The Los Angeles police, for example, banned it in 1980, after having deplored a dozen deaths during muscular arrests with tackling on the ground and strangulation. The New York Police Department followed suit in 1993, but the authorities did not legislate on the matter. In October 2019, Eric Garner's youngest daughter, Emerald Snipe Garner, launched a petition in the United States to pass a law, the "Eric Garner Law", which would institute the prohibition of the practice in all the countries.

In Europe, several states have renounced the police technique: Switzerland abandoned it in 2001 after the death of Samson Chukwu, a Nigerian who had been refused his right of asylum. While driving to the airport, he struggled before being tackled on his stomach. The practice has since been prohibited among the Helvetians. Belgium followed suit and banned it in 2005.

France, bad European student?

In France, the technique is framed without being prohibited, despite the recurrent advocacy of several NGOs such as Amnesty International, the League for Human Rights or the Action of Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT). "The dangerousness of this practice is no longer to be proven. We know that it is lethal, so we should only use it as a last resort, not for a traffic control", reacts to France 24 Anne-Sophie Simpere , freedom advocacy officer at Amnesty International.

"In other European countries, the police manage to apprehend individuals without using this technique," she continues. According to her, the continuation of this practice speaks volumes about French police practices, which tend to be more "offensive" than those of some of its European neighbors.

"Countries like Belgium, Switzerland or Germany are recognized for their good practices concerning the maintenance of order, especially during demonstrations. Belgium is rather in a logic of dialogue and de-escalation whereas in France, the method is much more offensive ", continues Anne-Sophie Simpere.

France has been singled out several times for the practice of tackling on the ground. She was sentenced in 2017 by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for the death of Mohamed Boukrourou, after his ventral immobilization in a police van. In February 2019, a bill was tabled by a dozen leftist deputies to request the ban on "lethal immobilization techniques". The request was rejected by Parliament.

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