Death of Cédric Chouviat: a new expertise confirms responsibility of police

The synthetic expertise notes that “the morphology” of Cédric Chouviat “participated in the occurrence of cardiac arrest”. But all the other death factors they report concern the gestures of the police when they tried to handle the man on the ground.

Le Monde with AFP

A synthetic medical expertise paid to the survey of the delivery of the delivery man Cédric Chouviat following a police check, on January 3, 2020, in Paris, confirmed the responsibility of the three officials, according to his conclusions including the ‘France-Press agency (AFP) had awareness, Monday, January 24th.

In this document dated the 8th of January, the five experts mandated by the investigating judge hold as a cause of the death a “simultaneous association of several factors” arising from the actions of interpellation having “resulted in a very rapid deprivation of Oxygen to the brain “.

This 42-year-old family father had been plated on the ground, with his motorcycle helmet on his head, during a control close to the Eiffel Tower, causing his discomfort. Hospitalized in critical condition, it was declared dead on January 5, 2020.

No role played by the “Previous Cardiovascular State” of Cédric Chouviat

The synthetic 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 raised by the experts concern the actions of the police when they tried to handcuff Mr. Chouviat on the ground.

The movement of “the forearm passed under the chin” of the deliveryman has, according to them, caused a “mechanical crushing of [his] trachea” and his “carotid”. A police officer might also have fired on the jugular of the helmet trying to master Mr. Chouviat, which “could be at the origin of the fractures” observed at the neck.

As the first expertise of the heart rendered in August 2020, the expertise of synthesis spreads the role played by the “anterior cardiovascular state” of Mr. Chouviat in his death, mentioned in the first autopsy report. This factor is “theoretically possible but unlikely”, write the experts.

Industifying for “Homemicide involuntary”

Three of the four police officers who participated in this QUAI BRANLY control were indicted in July 2020 for “unintentional homicide”, while a fourth is placed under the witness status.

From the drama, the family denounces a “police burner” caused by “dangerous” interpellation methods, a “rear strangulation” – a technique now officially banned – and claims a requalification of the facts in “voluntary violence having resulted in death “. It would be a crime punishable by the foundation. The relatives of the victim also accuse the police not to react quickly enough to the manifest signs of Mr Chouviat’s asphyxiation, who said nine times “I started” before doing a discomfort.

In this moment of “extreme tension”, “we can conceive that after immobilizing the victim the peacekeepers did not react immediately to the finding of the stop of movements and the absence of responsiveness “Mr. Chouviat, also believe the experts.

Solicited, Laurent-Franck Lienard, a lawyer of two of the police, did not wish to comment. Thibault de Montbrial, lawyer of the other two, did not respond to AFP.

/Media reports.