Three municipal police officers from Béziers (Hérault) were indicted on Friday and placed under judicial control, after the death on April 8, of a thirty-something arrested for a control of the confinement, announced Friday the public prosecutor's office of Béziers.
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.
The policeman who was in the back of the vehicle, aged 33, was "
indicted on the count of willful violence resulting in death without intention of giving it by a person holding public authority in the exercise of his functions
”, details the public prosecutor, Raphaël Balland, in a press release.
His judicial control prohibits him in particular from exercising the profession of municipal police officer.
The other two, the driver and the front passenger, were indicted on the count of non-assistance to a person in danger.
In front of the investigators as in front of the investigating judge, they maintained the essence of their initial statements, explaining that the victim "
was always very virulent
" during his transport to the police station and would not have calmed down
until their arrival on up, starting to snore making them think he had fallen asleep,
”according to the prosecution.
According to two witnesses, he was on the contrary "
unconscious in the back seat even before the vehicle started again
".
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
", still according to the prosecutor's office in Béziers.