The Créteil public prosecutor's office said on Wednesday that the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) was to be seized in the context of the controversial arrest of four teenagers at the end of May in Val-de-Marne. Their families have complained about "arbitrary detention" and "racist and homophobic insults".

The IGPN, the police, "will be seized" after the controversial arrest in late May in the Val-de-Marne of four teenagers whose families have complained of arbitrary detention and racist insults, announced on Wednesday the prosecutor's office Creteil. This case re-emerged in the midst of a debate on police violence and when the government promised "zero tolerance" against racism in the police. Aged 14 to 15, the four college students, two of whom are of North African origin and a third is black, were arrested on May 26 after a check in a park in Vitry-sur-Seine because their description corresponded "to the description of the perpetrators of a snatch the day before, "said a police source.

Homophobic and racist insult charges

According to family lawyer Jerôme Karsenti, they are then handcuffed "in the street for two hours" before being taken to the Kremlin-Bicêtre police station in a municipal police car. It was in this vehicle that three of them said that they had suffered homophobic and racist insults and, for one, that they had been slapped. The fourth youth is taken to another police car.

Three of the young boys are taken into police custody and their parents state that they have not been informed. After approximately twenty-four hours in police custody, no charges will be brought against them, according to Mr. Karsenti.

Contacted Wednesday, the Créteil prosecution said it would soon seize the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) after receiving complaints from families for "arbitrary detention" and "insults of a racist and homophobic nature".

"We were worried dead"

"We were worried dead, we had no information, absolutely nothing. The whole procedure was done without us being in the loop," said Mohand Bakir, the father of one of the young people. "My son is 14 years old. How is it possible that we are not warned? Even today we do not know why our children were arrested."

A police source on the contrary assures that the parents were indeed informed more or less within an hour and that the families were received the same evening by a judicial police officer. "The three saw a lawyer and two saw a doctor," added the same source.

 "We still do not have the names of the lawyers who were called to see the young people"

A version questioned by the LFI deputy for Val-de-Marne, Mathilde Panot, who mobilized in the early hours of the case. "To date, we still do not have the names of the lawyers who were called to see the young people," she told AFP.

For his part, the PCF mayor of the town, Jean-Claude Kennedy, assured having requested an internal investigation which concluded that the municipal police was "in no way implicated in this case".

He also denounced, in a press release, "these acts of police violence committed against young Vitriots", expressing "all (his) support" to the young people concerned and their families "in this ordeal".

A press conference with the families of the young people is scheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m. in Ivry-sur-Seine at the permanence of Mathilde Panot.