The divisional commissioner Grégoire Chassaing, in charge of the police system at the time of the fall in the Loire of Steve Maia Caniço in Nantes in June 2019, was indicted for manslaughter, we learned Tuesday from the Rennes prosecutor’s office. “He disputes the reasons and the terms of his indictment but he does not wish to make any comment on an investigation in progress”, declared his lawyer Me Louis Cailliez.
Another commissioner, Thierry Palermo, departmental director of public security at the time of the facts, was placed under the status of witness assisted at the end of his hearing on Monday by the investigating judge in charge of the case, according to Rennes prosecutor Philippe Astruc.
“It is a great relief for the family and a feeling of justice which they had badly needed for two years”, reacted the lawyer of the family, Me Cécile de Oliveira. The two years that have passed since Steve’s death, “it was the time to carry out extremely technical and complex expertise,” recalled the lawyer. But, “for them who lost a child, this time was long”. “We are happy that justice is making its way even if the time is long,” said Samuel Raymond, coordinator of Freeform, a national structure which supports the organization of festive gatherings.
Several invitations
Two years after Steve’s fatal fall in the Loire in Nantes, several people were summoned by the examining magistrate. The mayor of Nantes Johanna Rolland, the deputy in charge of security at the time of the facts, and the former prefect Claude d’Harcourt and sub-prefect must be heard by the end of September.
In June, an important element had rebounded the investigation. The investigations finally made it possible to “determine the very precise time and place of the victim’s fall in the Loire”. The prosecutor had announced that the young Steve Maia Caniço had fallen in the Loire at 4 hours and 33 minutes, “that is to say in the time of the intervention of the national police” on the night of June 21 to 22, 2019.
Three judicial information “against X” are investigated in Rennes.