The 42-year-old liver-driver died in January 2020, in Paris, after having undergone a strangulation during a hectic arrest conducted by the police.
by Antoine Albertini
More than three years after the death of Cédric Chouviat, a 42-year-old litter driver, his family lawyers claimed, Friday, February 17, the organization of a reconstruction in situ, on the very places where, On Friday January 3, 2020, a common police check turned to the drama. In this file, which had aroused very strong emotion in public opinion, to the point of becoming a time one of the symbols of illegitimate violence committed by police officers, several primers of reconstructions have already taken place, but never in conditions approaching as close as possible to those of the fatal arrest.
That day, between 9:40 a.m. and 10:10 a.m., at the corner of Avenue de Suffren and Quai Jacques-Chirac, in the 15 e arrondissement of Paris, Cédric Chouviat undergoes a strangulation during a hectic arrest after bright exchanges between police officers who have just checked it and while still wears his motorcycle helmet and is tackled on the ground. Victim of heart discomfort, transported to Georges-Pompidou hospital in a coma, he died two days later. Autopsy and conclusions of medical expertise is final: Cédric Chouviat’s larynx was fractured, he did not suffer from any particular pathology. The cause of death is indeed a “simultaneous association of several factors” attributable to arrest gestures, which led “to a very rapid deprivation of oxygen to the brain”.
Made relatively rare, almost integrality of the road control scene, then the arrest, is filmed by Cédric Chouviat. While the latter is on the ground, if the images are no longer visible, his phone continues to record the sound atmosphere of the scene, freezing. Revealed by Mediapart in June 2020, this sequence suggests, on nine occasions, the voice of Mr. Chouviat pronounce the words “I amaze”.
The debate now revolves around a question: in addition to his unilateral decision to challenge Cédric Chouviat, did the gestures practiced by the policeman enrolled in a regulatory framework? “Three years after the facts, what are we still trying to make us debate?, Asked M es Vincent Brengarth and William Bourdon, lawyers of the family of Cédric Chouviat alongside Arié Alimi . We have no reason to consider, in view of the elements of the file, that the use of force was regulatory that day. “The issue of the demonstration derives, in particular, to a possible requalification of the facts of “” Involuntary homicide “, an offense for which the policeman is prosecuted in question mainly, in” voluntary violence which led to death “, a crime liable to the Assize Court.
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