The controversy swells around a violent arrest in the Hauts-de-Seine. It must be said that the video of it was seen on Sunday evening nearly a million times on the social network X. Asked, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office indicated that “an investigation had been opened on Saturday evening in Bagneux following facts in particular of aggravated refusal to comply”.
In this very short video, about ten seconds long and devoid of sound, a car topped with a flashing light hits a black man in shorts and a T-shirt. Two other men – one in a police uniform and the other in civilian clothes – rush at him as he gets up, knock him down and immobilize him, his face pressed against the pavement. The uniformed man raises his arm, as if to strike, as the video ends.
A person was taken into custody, the prosecution said, without specifying whether it was the man seen on the ground in the images. “After psychiatric expertise”, this person “was the subject of compulsory hospitalization on Sunday”, further specified the public prosecutor, without giving details as to the state of health of the man.
The newspaper The Parisian revealed the facts under the title “refusal to comply in Bagneux: the video of a widely reported violent arrest”. These images have indeed gone viral on the Internet. AFP was able to geolocate them and confirm that they had indeed been shot at the border between the towns of Bagneux and Fontenay-aux-Roses.
The prefecture assures that the man is “not injured”
The Hauts-de-Seine prefecture for its part indicated that the man who was traveling on two wheels had “refused to comply, burned a fire and then hit a police car”. According to the Parisianthe driver would then get off his two-wheeler before being caught by the police.
The prefecture assured that the man arrested was “a little agitated, not very coherent” but was “not injured” and had therefore been presented to a doctor. She also said that two police officers were injured and were prescribed one and seven days of total incapacity for work (ITT).