The ministry representative described them as “vigilantes” who felt “growing wings”. Five police officers from a local brigade in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis) who operated in sensitive neighborhoods were heavily sentenced this Thursday by the Bobigny court. Hand broken with a baton as a lesson, false reports, illegal night search… The list is frightening!
Aged 30 to 48, five officials from the Territorial Contact Brigade (BTC) of Quatre Chemins received sentences ranging from three years in prison, two of which were suspended, to six months suspended for acts of violence and false reports. in 2019-2020, to the detriment of residents of the Scandicci and Courtilières cities, known for hosting drug trafficking. A sixth accused was acquitted. The court went beyond the requisitions of the prosecution, which had only asked at the hearing in June for up to six months in prison and two acquittals.
Prison sentences and bans on working as a police officer
“If the sentences may seem significant, the court had to judge people who hold a portion of public authority, who are guarantors of the freedom and security of citizens and a pillar of democracy and the Republic,” said justified the president of the court Dominique Pittilloni at the conclusion of his deliberations.
The peacekeeper Raphaël I., who has since left the police to retrain in IT, received the heaviest sentence of three years in prison, two of which were suspended for multiple acts of violence during arrests. In particular, he gratuitously hit a building caretaker, who was simply out of breath from hauling up trash cans. The courts permanently banned him from working as a police officer.
Alongside peacekeeper Yazid B., he was also found guilty of having carried out an illegal search in the middle of the night, justifying it a posteriori with a false report. The second was sentenced to twelve months in prison, six of which were suspended, for unjustified beatings of those arrested on several occasions.
45 days of ITT for a dealer, whose hand was smashed
Against the head of the brigade, Christian M., known as “The Dictator”, the court handed down a sentence of eighteen months in prison, ten of which were suspended for a simple suspended sentence for having smashed the hand of a police officer with a baton. a young drug dealer in a room at the police station as a lesson. With broken bones, the victim received 45 days of ITT.
Julien S., nicknamed “The Electrician” for his propensity to use the electric shock gun, received an eight-month suspended sentence for beatings and throwing tear gas. Damien P., whose release the prosecution had requested, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence for violence.
“Cleaning up cities where there is drug trafficking is indeed an honorable task, but only in compliance with the law,” prosecutor Loïc Pageot reprimanded in the preamble to his indictment. With its arrest policy based on “intimidation”, “gratuitous violence” and “harassment” during identity checks, the BTC Quatre Chemins gave “the impression of a team which feels itself growing wings, sees itself as a vigilante vocation,” argued the representative of the public prosecutor.
Defending a conspiracy theory
At trial, the memory of defendants and witnesses often proved to be faulty. “I don’t remember this intervention”, we heard throughout the three days of hearing, like a distorted echo of the “I don’t remember this conversation” which punctuate the trials of drug traffickers.
For the defendants, the accusations were part of a “plot” by their police colleagues against a backdrop of harmful rivalries between the different departments of the Pantin police station. In a police force adept at numerical objectives, the flattering statistics of the BTC Quatre Chemins in terms of arrests and seizures of narcotics would have made many envious. According to them, their gang of young guns stood out too much in a crusted police institution, made up of colleagues and officers “more civil servants than cops”. “We followed guys with our personal cars, we did I don’t know how many deals, we were young cops who wanted it! », Yazid B., 37, pleaded before his judges. In vain.