The three police officers who carried out the fatal arrest of Cédric Chouviat in January 2020 will be tried for manslaughter.
A trial announced five years after his death. A source close to the case indicated that three police officers will soon be tried in Paris for manslaughter. The latter are accused of having unintentionally caused the death of deliveryman Cédric Chouviat during his arrest on January 3, 2020.
A fourth policewoman, who had been placed during the investigation under the more favorable status of assisted witness, escaped a trial.
The referral of the three police officers to the Paris criminal court is “an important step for the family of Cédric” Chouviat, said Arié Alimi, the family’s lawyer.
“It is also for the judicial treatment of police violence. The hearing will be the place and time for important debates on the functioning of the police institution and the judicial institution,” he said.
William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, other lawyers for the family, also welcomed a “crucial step” regretting, nevertheless, “the choice of the qualification” of involuntary homicide “which distorts and obscures” the “voluntary” character, according to them, violence.
The trial of police violence
Me Pauline Ragot, who represents the captain and another police officer involved, indicated for her part that she had appealed the referral order issued on December 17.
As a reminder, during his arrest, Cédric Chouviat was pinned to the ground with his motorcycle helmet on his head, which led to discomfort and his death two days later on January 5, 2020 at the age of 42.
The investigation shed light six months later on the bad practices of the police officers who carried out the checks and made the case an emblem of police violence.
The judicial expertise thus revealed that when he was put on the ground and handcuffed by the police, Cédric Chouviat declared “I’m suffocating” nine times in the space of thirteen seconds, before feeling unwell.
A plea that echoed the death of George Floyd, an African-American man suffocated in May 2020 by a white police officer in Minneapolis during an arrest. The tragedy triggered the “Black Lives Matter” movement, that is to say, “black lives matter” which was exported beyond the United States.
