On April 13, three minors on a scooter were hit by a pursuing police car. Three police officers were taken into custody on Friday.
By BL with AFP
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Ihe Parisian police on the verge of a new scandal? On April 13, shortly before midnight, in the 20e district of the capital, three minors aged 13, 14 and 17 – one of whom was not wearing a helmet – were chased by the police while they were riding a scooter. They ended up falling. Friday, April 21, according to Agence France-Presse citing a source familiar with the matter, the three police officers involved in this case were placed in police custody. The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that three people were in custody, without specifying who they were.
Also this Friday, one of the three police officers was indicted and placed under judicial supervision in Paris, as the driver of the police car suspected of having hit the scooter. At the end of his police custody, the police officer was brought before an investigating judge who indicted him for violence with a weapon resulting in incapacity for work and forgery in public writing by the person responsible for the public authority, according to the judicial source. Placed under judicial supervision, he is prohibited from exercising police activity, as well as from coming into contact with victims and witnesses, she said.
The three passengers of the scooter injured
Thursday, April 20, the families of the three injured minors, one of whom was seriously, had demanded “transparency” and “the truth” about the conditions under which a police vehicle would have struck the two-wheeler.
The driver, a 17-year-old girl, was hospitalized and her vital prognosis was still engaged on Thursday. His 13-year-old brother was injured in the liver and another passenger, aged 14, was hit in the knee, the lawyer for the two families, Arié Alimi, told a press conference. The latter filed a complaint for attempted murder by a person holding public authority, with a weapon by destination, on minors.
The Paris prosecutor’s office entrusted the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) with an investigation into the conditions in which the scooter fell, and opened another investigation into the driver’s refusal to comply.
According to the police headquarters, the police “wanted to check” the scooter, but “the driver refused to stop” and “took a street in the opposite direction before losing control” of his two-wheeler. For the families of the minors and their lawyer, there is no doubt that the scooter was hit by the police.
READ ALSOParis: police accused of hitting minors on scooters
“A desire to hide”
A 37-year-old woman, presenting herself as a witness to the facts, told the press on Thursday that she saw the police vehicle hit the two-wheeler. “I saw the scooter rise and especially the bodies ejected before falling back on the pavement,” she added.
This woman also claims to have been ordered by a police officer to erase videos she had made just after the shock. “An inspector clearly threatened me and said that I was going to have big problems and end up in police custody if I did not erase the videos”, she assured. Me Alimi denounced “a manifest desire for concealment, a desire to destroy evidence, a desire also to organize a procedure which would aim to criminalize the children themselves”.
“We don’t want to wage war on the police, we just want to know the truth,” commented the injured driver’s older sister and younger brother. “It is necessary to be transparent about what happened, we need it to move on,” noted the mother of the third teenager.