New document added to the file and new twist.
A summary medical report contributed to the investigation into the death of delivery man Cédric Chouviat after a police check on January 3, 2020 in Paris confirmed the responsibility of the three officials, according to its conclusions, which AFP learned of on Monday.
In this document dated January 8, the five experts appointed by the examining magistrate retain as the cause of death a “simultaneous association of several factors” resulting from the gestures of arrest having “resulted in a very rapid deprivation of oxygen to the brain ".
On January 3, 2020, the 42-year-old father was tackled to the ground with his motorcycle helmet on his head during this police check, causing him to feel unwell.
Taken to hospital in critical condition, he died on January 5.
The actions of the police officers in question
The summary expertise notes that "the morphology" of Mr. Chouviat, "obese" and with a "short neck", "participated in the occurrence of cardiac arrest".
But all the other death factors noted by the experts relate to the actions of the police when they tried to handcuff Mr. Chouviat to the ground.
The movement of the "forearm passed under the chin" of the delivery man caused, according to them, a "mechanical crushing of the trachea" and the "carotid", while a police officer could also have shot at the jugular of the helmet while trying to control Mr. Chouviat, which "could be the cause of the fractures" observed in the neck.
Read alsoThe widow of Cédric Chouviat accuses: “He experienced the same suffering as George Floyd”
Since the death of Cédric Chouviat, his family has constantly demanded the suspension of the police officers in question, accused of blundering.
Four police officers took part in this Quai Branly check near the Eiffel Tower.
Three were indicted for "manslaughter", while a fourth police officer was placed under the status of assisted witness.
According to the General Inspectorate of the National Police, one of the four police officers practiced a "rear strangulation" on Mr. Chouviat to bring him to the ground, a controversial technique, which will no longer be practiced in this way by the police, according to the statements by the former Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner, in June 2021.
No cardiac pathology
Like a first heart expertise rendered in August 2020, the summary expertise, on the other hand, rules out the role played by Mr. Chouviat's "previous cardiovascular condition" in his death, mentioned in the first autopsy report.
This factor is "theoretically possible but unlikely", write the experts.
For the family's lawyers, "the absence of a provisional administrative measure" against the civil servants in question, "incoherent with regard to the terrible gravity of the facts, manifestly reflects a tolerance on the part of the hierarchy, incomprehensible and unbearable for the family.
They demand a reclassification of the facts as "willful violence resulting in death", a crime punishable by assizes.
Questioned by the judges in July, the police denied having perceived the "obvious signs" of Mr. Chouviat's asphyxiation, ensuring that they would have reacted if they had heard the arrested cry "I am suffocating".
However, recordings unveiled by Médiapart and Liberation have proven that it was very audible.
The IGPN also acknowledged that such words had been spoken and noted a delay before first aid was given.
Experts believe that in this moment of "extreme tension", "it is conceivable that after having immobilized the victim, the peacekeepers did not react immediately to the observation that the movements had stopped and the absence responsiveness” by Mr. Chouviat.