Thursday, April 22, 2021, the show Correspondent returned to a case that shook France: that of Michel Zecler. In November 2020, the Web was outraged by discovering the video of the music producer beaten up by several police officers. Images of incredible violence that rocked the media. Five months after the events, the man continues to claim that the police were attracted to his “look” and his “skin color”. And for good reason. He claimed to have been insulted by “dirty nigger” in addition to having heard: “We’re going to fuck you up”. Since then, three police officers have been indicted for “willful violence by a person holding public authority”, with aggravating circumstances, including that of racism which remains to be proven since the CCTV images do not allow to hear the exchanges during the altercation. In the absence of more information on the comments made by the police, the France 2 has managed to get several messages that say a lot about the state of mind of the police involved in this case. In particular, investigators found a mocking image of the death of George Floyd. In the caption of the cliché of the African American, the neck crushed by the knee of the policeman Derek Chauvin, was written: “When you deflate your mattress at the end of the evening”. A montage dated May 2021 posted on a private group.
“In the police, our ideas change “
In other exchanges, one of the police officers said: “I am disgusted that all these bastards are accepted in France and that we [ne fasse] nothing”. To justify himself in front of his interlocutor of the time, who “forbidden to become racist”, he adds : “It’s not racism, but all the bastards who screw the shit are all the same …” In front of the journalists, the police officer in question defends himself: “I have a group of friends where we send each other bullshit, but like everyone else, there are videos of cats breaking their mouths, there is everything”. As for his racist remarks, he declares: “In the police, our ideas change, because we are always called upon to question the same type of population”. Thus, he declared that Michel Zecler had not been prosecuted for his skin color, but because of his “suspicious behavior” because he “was fleeing the police vehicle “ in addition to not wearing “mask”. Justifications which had not convinced a large number of French people when the affair broke out.
Michel Zecler case:
While the 3 police officers prosecuted denied any racism, here are 2 messages found on the phone of one of them seized by the courts.1 joke on Floyd and “I’m disgusted that all these bastards are accepted in France” https://t.co/edvz5STgIK pic.twitter.com/ijCxGEIuuj
– David Perrotin (@davidperrotin) April 22, 2021
Read also : George Floyd: the teenager who filmed her murder live, traumatized, is harassed on the Web