Six police officers of a brigade of proximity of Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis) are tried from this Wednesday at the court of Bobigny for violence and false reports. For three days, the criminal court will look into the drift of these members of the territorial contact brigade (BTC), in charge of cities known to host drug trafficking.
The case began in 2020 when the commissioner of Pantin reported to the justice of many complaints from residents around the behavior of the police officers of this BTC, one of two in this city on the edge of Paris. Heirs to community policing, these units are assigned to specific neighbourhoods and carry out intelligence work, while enjoying a certain freedom of action. The BTC Quatre-Chemins deals with the cities of Courtillières and Scandicci.
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Focusing on the period 2019-2020, the investigation highlights numerous facts of violence against young people in these neighborhoods, falsifications of reports or rigged arrests. "We consider them a little undesirable, we suspect them of being in traffic, we want to get them cleared. So either we falsely stick them facts that accuse them, or we hit them, "summarizes to AFP a source close to the file.
In one case, a police officer broke a youth's hand with a baton blow, causing him 45 days of total incapacity for work (ITT). In another incident, police officers are accused of slipping drugs under a bench to justify an arrest.
Of the eight BTC officials initially taken into custody in February 2021, the Bobigny prosecutor's office has filed charges against six of them, aged between 30 and 48. Fourteen people are civil parties before the courts, which have failed to identify all the potential victims.
On the administrative level, the six defendants "have all changed assignment since the alleged facts," said AFP the Paris police prefecture. "A referral to the disciplinary council for one of them and a temporary exclusion from function of three days for the others have been proposed," she added. These proceedings are still under investigation.