The death of Cédric Chouviat was indeed caused by the action of three police officers, according to a new medical report.

It remains for the investigating judge to determine whether or not the death of this delivery man, who died during a police check in 2020 in Paris, was voluntary.

Five medical experts mandated by the judge retain as cause of death a “simultaneous association of several factors” resulting from the gestures of arrest.

This would have "resulted in a very rapid deprivation of oxygen to the brain".

The 42-year-old father had been tackled to the ground on January 3, 2020 with his motorcycle helmet on his head during a police check near the Eiffel Tower, causing him to feel unwell.

Hospitalized in critical condition, he was declared dead on January 5.

Neither the gestures of arrest when he was still standing nor his fall "caused any discomfort", according to the experts.

Death from rear strangulation

"The problem arises from the moment when the victim, obese with a short neck and a helmet on the head attached under the chin, finds himself in a ventral position with support and support in the dorsal region, a forearm passed forward from the neck that lifts the body to free the arms and bring them behind the back, in a general atmosphere of stress with opposition and struggle”, they sum up in one sentence.

For them, it was on the ground that the death of Cédric Chouviat was played out: the movement back and forth of the "forearm passed under the chin" would have caused a "mechanical crushing of the trachea" and of the carotid.

The family denounces a police blunder

A police officer could also have pulled on the jugular of the helmet while trying to control it, which "could be at the origin of the fractures" observed at the level of the neck.

From the start, the family denounced a “police blunder” caused by arrest techniques in his eyes “dangerous”, a rear strangulation.

The General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) had established that one of the four police officers had performed a "rear chokehold" on Cédric Chouviat to bring him to the ground, who "seemed" to have been pursued once on the ground.

The police gave up this highly criticized technique last July, which is not specifically named in the expert report.

Three police officers charged with intentional homicide

In their initial report of intervention, dated the day of the events and signed by the policewoman on behalf of the four members of the crew, the officials did not mention the use of this technique.

Like a first heart expertise rendered in August 2020, the summary expertise dismisses the role played by Cédric Chouviat's "previous cardiovascular condition" in his death, mentioned in a first autopsy report.

This factor is “theoretically possible but unlikely”.

Three of the four police officers who took part in this Quai Branly check were indicted in July 2020 for "manslaughter", while a fourth police officer was placed under the less incriminating status of assisted witness.

"One minute forty-five of savagery"

“A minute forty-five of strangulation and ventral tackle.

One minute forty-five of savagery.

This savagery is also that of the Ministry of the Interior, whose instructions and abstentions kill in France”, commented one of the family lawyers, Me Arié Alimi.

There remains the question raised by the family of the intentionality of the violence on the part of the police.

Cédric Chouviat's relatives accuse them of not having reacted quickly enough to the obvious signs of asphyxiation of the victim, who said nine times "I'm suffocating" in thirteen seconds before feeling unwell.

Soon a reconstruction of the events

To find out if the police were able to hear the delivery man's cries of agony, which they dispute, a reconstruction of the events, which should insist on the auditory aspect, should be organized soon, according to concordant sources.

Could then be played a requalification of the facts in "willful violence resulting in death", a crime punishable by assizes, as requested by the family.

Asked, Me Laurent-Franck Lienard, lawyer for two of the police officers, did not wish to comment.

Me Thibault de Montbrial, lawyer for the other two, did not respond to AFP.

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Cédric Chouviat case: The delivery man who died in Paris after his arrest repeated "I suffocate" seven times

  • Investigation

  • Cedric Chouviat

  • Paris

  • Police violence

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