Three municipal police officers from Béziers (Hérault) were taken into police custody Thursday, December 17, as part of an investigation opened after the death on April 8, of a thirty-something arrested for a control of the confinement, said the prosecution of Beziers.
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Municipal police officers were summoned for a hearing at the premises of the judicial police in Montpellier on Thursday morning.
Their custody follows the opening of a judicial investigation in April for "
willful violence resulting in death without intention of giving it by a person holding public authority and non-assistance to anyone in danger
", specified the public prosecutor, Raphaël Balland, in a press release.
The deceased man was schizophrenic according to his lawyer, and could be "
very agitated when he was not taking his treatment
".
Sentenced eight times since 2005 for violence and theft, this man with a course characterized by great instability had according to the three municipal police officers “
refused their control
” and “
resisted
” the arrest.
According to their statements, he was transported to the national police station in Béziers in the back of a vehicle on his stomach, handcuffed, with one of the municipal police officers sitting on his buttocks "
in order to keep him
".
When they arrived in the courtyard of the police station, “
the individual arrested was unconscious
” and could not be revived.
According to the autopsy ordered by the Béziers prosecutor's office, the man had undergone "
a support maintained with a certain force in the cervical region, probably with a knee or an elbow, which seems to have certainly participated in the death by causing an asphyxia syndrome
".
A toxicological analysis had, however, also revealed "
a context of acute intoxication following a massive intake of cocaine
", according to the prosecutor's office in Béziers.