Legal troubles are piling up for the police in Marseille. Five agents from the city’s Raid branch were taken into custody on Tuesday, August 8, according to a press release from the public prosecutor, as part of the investigation opened in early July after the death of Mohamed Bendriss. This 27-year-old man, of Algerian nationality, was probably killed by a shot from a defense bullet launcher (LBD) which hit him in the chest, at heart level, on the night of July 1 to 2, according to the first elements of the survey consulted by Release And Mediapart. “Several other police officers are also summoned today to be heard as witnesses”, add parquet.
That night, revolts in working-class neighborhoods were in progress after the death of Nahel M., in Nanterre, on June 27, killed while driving a car by the shooting of an agent. In Marseille, several stores are looted and several fires are lit in the streets of the city center. Videos of this evening, posted on social networks, attest to the violence of the police repression and in particular multiple shootings of Raid agents with LBDs and 12 gauge rifles equipped with ammunition called “beanbags”. This unit is usually used in the event of a terrorist attack or to deal with members of potentially armed criminal networks. It was also that night that Hedi R. was seriously injured by police officers from the city’s anti-crime brigade, four of whom were charged with aggravated willful violence and one of them, placed in custody.
According to his relatives, a few minutes before dying, Mohamed Bendriss observed these events. On a sequence that he himself filmed and posted on Snapchat, he witnesses from afar an arrest at 00:49 a.m., in a shopping street near the Old Port. He collapsed a few minutes later under the eyes of several witnesses in front of the building where his mother lived, on the cours Lieutaud.
“Ballistic Trauma”
Mohamed Bendriss was pronounced dead on Sunday July 2 at 2:05 a.m., a few moments after his arrival at La Timone hospital. The resuscitator doctor who tried to save him notes two suspicious marks on his body, in the shape of “cockade”, typical of the impact marks of LBDs used by law enforcement. One is located inside the right thigh and the other on the chest, at the level of the heart. An autopsy is carried out at 2 p.m. the same day and supports these suspicions. The two forensic pathologists conclude that “absence of previous pathological condition” and confirm that there is indeed a “ballistic trauma” in the thigh and thorax caused by the same type of projectile.
The autopsy also revealed a contusion of the apex of the heart which could be associated with the mark visible on the thorax of Mohamed Bendriss. Forensic pathologists then speak of ‘a’ commotio cordis [coup sur le cœur]”may be responsible for the initial cardio-circulatory arrest”. This medical term refers to a possible cause of heart failure caused by a violent shock. This is not the first time that the use of this weapon has been linked to a death. Doctors had looked into the risks of cardiac arrest in the event of flash-ball shooting (whose characteristics are close to current LBDs) at the level of the chest. In 2010, also in Marseille, Mustapha Ziani, a man in his forties, died in these circumstances, after being shot in the heart by this weapon.
“Serious political misconduct”
A first exploitation of video surveillance images of the city carried out by the judicial police a few hours after his death had made it possible to see Mohamed Bendriss driving on his scooter on the Lieutaud course, about 200 meters from the place where he will then be taken care of by the rescue. “[La victime] seems curled up on itself, noted the investigators. Since then, the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) has recovered other videos showing the moment when Mohamed Bendriss was hit by two shots, according to our information. These are the images that made it possible to go back to the Raid police officers.
The day before the death of Mohamed Bendriss, his cousin Abelkarim Y. had been mutilated, while he was on rue Saint-Ferréol, a paved road in the same district. Another investigation was opened by the Marseille prosecutor’s office to determine the circumstances of his injury. According to his testimony, the young man, also Algerian, was targeted by police officers who could match those of the Raid, when he represented no danger. “The order that was given to bring in Raid police officers who are not intended to intervene in urban violence is a serious political fault, reacts Arié Alimi, the family lawyer. It caused death and mutilation.”