The shock video was relayed on social networks in the spring by a police union. It was broadcast this Wednesday, August 5 on the big screen in the room of the Criminal Court of Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine). It is 10:20 p.m. on April 10, and in an aerial parking lot in Villejean, a priority district of the city, a man on a white scooter, suspected of coming to deliver drugs, is surrounded by a gang of ten young people. .
The discussion gives way to an outburst of violence. Kicks, punches, scooter helmets. Again and again. Two minutes and 30 seconds of relentlessness that seem endless. At the end, we even see one of the participants taking a picture of the inanimate man. Sitting in the front row of the courtroom, the victim, also indicted for drug trafficking, watched impassively the retransmission of his own lynching captured by the city's video surveillance. Suffering in particular from a broken jaw, he had to be hospitalized with an ITT of 45 days.
Nine settlements since the start of the year
Following this attack, three armed aftershocks took place in less than a week. A stray bullet had been found at the home of a resident. Two months later, more shots were fired at the front of two apartments. A rather unprecedented escalation of violence in the Breton capital, until then quite spared. Nine settlements of scores have occurred there since the beginning of the year, against four for the whole of 2019. In reaction, the public prosecutor, Philippe Astruc, had indicated at the end of June his "desire to bring a strong penal response ”.
During the investigation, five people were identified including two minors and three adults, aged 18 to 22 years. It is they who appeared for aggravated violence or complicity, two being already known to justice. The motives for the assault appear unclear. According to the victim, his only fault would be to belong to a rival district in the south of the city. "Is there no other reason why you could have been beaten up?" », Asks the president. " I do not remember anymore. I have memory loss ”, responds the person concerned.
One of the defendants, aged 18, hairdresser and member of a local rap group, with no criminal record, accuses him of assaulting his little brother a few months earlier. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. If he admits having given between five and ten blows, he regrets his act. “At the time, I did not think. I was blinded by hatred. I don't hit people like that ”.
"The logic of all repression has no effectiveness"
Another defendant, responding to the nickname "Chicken", categorically denies his involvement. However, he was recognized by the police, the victim and others involved. “I was not present. We gave my name instead of someone else, ”he defends himself vigorously. Without a profession, already convicted of driving without a license, violence, drug trafficking, concealment, and regular cocaine user, he claims to live on "pocket money" given by his parents. The last defendant is accused of complicity. He is accused of having witnessed the scene without intervening.
The prosecutor is asking for terms of five and seven imprisonment. “The requisitions are mind-blowing. The three people present will have to pay for the other seven absent, ”denounces Me Gwendoline Tenier, one of the defense lawyers. She points to flaws in the instruction and the temptation to make her client, without a criminal record, an example. “The logic of all repression is ineffective. The problem is social, educational and economic, ”adds one of his colleagues, Me Thierry Fillion.
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They were partially heard by the magistrates: the court sentenced the first two defendants to four and three years in prison. The last, prosecuted for complicity, was released.
