“J’etouffe!” It’s French, for “I’m suffocating” or “I can’t breathe,” the 42-year-old deliveryman and father of five died in a hospital two days later; his autopsy revealing a broken larynx, according to the prosecutor in the case.
The similarities with the case of George Floyd a Black American killed during a police arrest in the US city of Minneapolis don’t end there. Chouviat’s arrest, also captured on video, would, like Floyd’s, become the focus of a wider campaign against police brutality and as in the Floyd case, action against the officers would seem painfully slow in coming but six months after the death of Chouviat, who was of North African heritage, three of the police officers involved have now been placed under formal investigati on, lawyers for the Chouviat family told the media on Thursday.
This, after audio of the incident captured by Chouviat’s own phone was submitted to the investigating judge. The transcript of the recording, seen by the media, shows that Chouviat repeated the words “j’etouffe” seven times. A lawyer for two of the police officers says his clients never heard the words as Chouviat was still wearing his motorcycle helmet at the time.
All four officers deny any wrongdoing. The case is one of two that have cast a harsh light on alleged police brutality in France and on the apparent impunity, some say, with which accusations of it are all too often met. Another, involving the death in police custody of Adama Traoré in a Paris suburb in 2016, has also seen fresh developments, with the testimony of two witnesses heard as part of the investigation last week.
But four years after the 24-year-old Black man died, no charges have been brought against the officers involved. Their lawyers point to a medical assessment that blames Traoré’s death on a pre-existing condition that his family says he didn’t have.
Cedric Chouviat’s widow Doria and her children take part in a march in Levallois, near Paris, on January 12, 2020. What the two cases have highlighted is the difficulty that families of victims face in getting allegations of police brutality properly and swiftly investigated.
According to William Bourdon, a lawyer for Chouviat’s family, France “is getting more like the United States by the persistence of police brutality and by the denial that goes with it.”A spokesperson for the Paris police service declined to comment to the media.
Both cases have also led to calls for a change in policing techniques. In the Traoré case, the officers used a controversial technique that involves pinning a suspect to the ground on his stomach. In Chouviat’s case, the allegations center on the use of the chokehold. Last month, under pressure from police unions, plans to ban the technique were shelved by France’s then-Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.
That he had even considered the move proved unpopular with the police, who held several protests in June against him. On Monday He was replaced as interior minister on July 6 as part of a wider government reshuffle.
Source:ghgossip.com
