Raid police officers in the hot seat after the death of a 27-year-old man

Barely out of an internal crisis linked to the detention of a BAC policeman suspected of having shot Hedi with a flash-ball, part of whose skull had to be amputated, also on the sidelines of the riots, the police is again in the hot seat in the context of a second case that cost his life, on the night of 1^er on July 2 in Marseille, to a 27-year-old man and featuring members of the Raid’s elite unit. Five “supercops” from its Marseille branch were placed in police custody on Tuesday in the premises of the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN, police police).

An informed source tells the Figaro that “in total, about twenty police officers were heard, most often as witnesses“, in the context of a judicial investigation opened on July 4 by the head of “fatal blows with the use or threat of a weapon“. The facts took place at the height of the riots, the same night Hedi was beaten up: Mohamed B., 27, is riding a scooter on Cours Lieutaud, one of the most important thoroughfares in the city center , when he suddenly loses consciousness and is found, lifeless, on the road next to his machine. The hypothesis of a banal accident is swept away at the autopsy which reveals that the death was probably caused by “a thoracic impact caused by a non contendant projectile which could be similar to a flash ball“.

Bags of micro-beads

At the last stage of the investigations, the death of this man, who leaves behind a child and a pregnant widow, could be the result of a bean bag shot, a special ammunition used by the Raid in intervention. Also called “bean bag” or “pea bag” ammunition, the latter comes in the form of micro-steel balls enclosed in bags folded into the cartridge case. “These projectiles are the oldest and best known medium impact weapon projectiles. They are designed to deploy in flight and hit the target person by their flat side“, describes a research report of the national school of police of Quebec devoted since 2005 to the “intermediate weaponsand to theiruse in a crowd control context“.

Classified as “non-lethal” and having no “mutilating” effect, this ammunition is supposed to “not cause penetrating injury when used at appropriate distances“, underlines for its part a study of the University of Texas published in September 2020 by the New England Journal of Medicine. On the other hand, assure the scientists, these “bean bags”can cause serious damage and are not suitable for use in crowd control“.

In Lorraine, an injured motorist

The Raid police officers, a unit specializing in risky arrests and not in maintaining order, could be worried in another case, in Lorraine this time. It depicts a young man who was seriously injured in Mont-Saint-Martin (Meurthe-et-Moselle). On the night of June 29 to 30, members of the Nancy branch were called because of urban violence in this town bordering Belgium and Luxembourg. Aimène Bahouh, 25, was seriously hit in the head by a projectile while driving his car. Initial investigations revealed that the driver’s injuries were “compatible with the use of these bean bags“, said last month the public prosecutor, François Capin-Dulhoste in a press release.

The parquet floor of Nancy requested the opening of a judicial investigation, the family of the victim claiming that he was hit by a shot from the Raid. That night, the police were brought around 1:00 am to make use of various intermediate weapons “, among “some projecting bags containing fine lead balls“. Raid operators then left the scene.around 02:00, without knowing of possible injuries“. The judicial investigation against X falls under the head of “intentional violence resulting in total incapacity for work for more than eight days, by a person holding public authority and with the use of a weapon“. A flagrant investigation was entrusted to the delegation of the IGPN from Metz (Moselle) and two judges co-seized from the instruction center of the Nancy court are conducting the investigations.

The police, the most sanctioned

Already used in France, in particular during the demonstrations of the “Yellow Vests”, the “bean bag” had been fired by the police officers of the research and intervention brigade (BRI), on January 12, 2019, to disperse the thugs. As revealed Le Figaro, they had also been used by the Raid during the November 2022 riots in Mayotte. In the United States, “bean bags” were fired during protests in Ferguson, then by police during protests related to the spring 2020 death of George Floyd in Austin, Texas. Four men aged 18 to 26 were hospitalized with skull injuries, two of which were treated in intensive care. Raid police custody is extremely rare within the national police, which remains the most controlled body in France. With 150,000 agents, or 5% of the approximately 2.5 million state civil servants, the institution pronounced just over 2,200 sanctions in 2022. These represent 60% of the total distributed within the entire administration. French.

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