Fifteen months suspended prison sentence and a three-year ban on carrying a weapon were requested Thursday evening against a Marseille police officer from a Specialized Field Brigade (BST) for violence described as illegitimate and illegal by the Marseille prosecutor’s office .
In support of colleagues operating, on July 9, 2020, controls on hidden work in bars in the 3rd arrondissement of Marseille, one of the poorest in the city, the police had to manage the disruptive attitude but neither violent nor outrageous of a man, employed in the construction industry.
“I take two shots”
After an uneventful check during which he was forced to throw three grams of hashish into the gutter, he wanted to return to the bar. The leader of the crew, a seasoned police officer with 23 years of experience, had stopped him. ” Cleared ! “, the police officer allegedly shouted at him, pushing him away while holding his flexible stick by the ends as a barrier.
The man had fallen. “As I got up,” he told the court, “I heard the sound of a telescopic baton unfolding and I took two blows.”
Admitted to hospital the next day, he was diagnosed with a fracture of his right forearm and a fracture of his left hand. A forensic doctor had set the duration of total incapacity for work at 45 days.
At the stand, the police officer assures that “during the entire check, there were no shots”. He denies having held a telescopic baton, a weapon for which he does not have authorization. Video footage appears to show him facing a wall folding a retractable object. “I put my soft stick back in my technical vest,” he explains to justify his action. An expert estimated that the construction worker’s injuries could be compatible with blows from a telescopic baton.
“He’s not a scoundrel, not a CRS who acts like a mad dog”
In an uncompromising indictment, Marie-Aude Fichet, prosecutor, recalled that “the use of force must be absolutely necessary and strictly proportionate. In this case this is not the case. Its use here was neither legitimate nor legal since the defendant was not authorized to carry a telescopic baton.”
Me Sandrine Pauzano, in defense of the police officer, called on the court to doubt: “On these video images, we cannot say that it is a telescopic steel baton”.
Demanding his release, his lawyer described him as “a neighborhood police officer involved in the rehabilitation of impoverished housing estates in the 3rd arrondissement. He’s not a bastard, not a CRS who acts like a mad dog.” The judgment is due to be delivered on September 6.
