This Thursday, the French internet media “Loopsider” broadcasted a scene of rare violence showing Michel Zecler being lynched. On the images from CCTV cameras, one can clearly see a black man, Michel Zecler, being beaten by three police officers. As soon as the video was broadcast on social networks the IGPN was seized and the three police officers suspended.
The Facts
Michel Zecler manages his production company Black Gold Corp Studios in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. As Loopsider explains, it’s 7:40 pm last Saturday, November 21, when Michel is in the street in front of his premises without his covid-19 mask. When a police patrol passes by in his car, he goes back to his premises so as not to be controlled.
As he was about to close the door behind him, the three policemen forced their way into his premises. They began to shoot Michel Zecler in an attempt to extricate him from the street. “I was at home. They were very virulent, I was afraid,” said the victim. “I tried to stop people in the street, but the police closed the door. I got really beaten up.
Without knowing that they were being filmed by surveillance cameras, the police inflicted about twenty punches, a dozen kicks to the neck, about fifteen blows with batons to the head and knee blows.
Given the violence of the blows I was given, I really thought I was going to die. I didn’t want to hit them, it would have backfired.
Michel Zecler
According to the officers’ statement, the producer tried to take their weapon, hit them and then called for backup. This is contradicted by the videos.
But in addition to the beating that Michel Zecler suffered, many insults of a racist nature were uttered. “I heard a lot of ‘dirty nigger’. »
At the same time, nine artists were recording an album in the basement. Once they heard Michel’s cries for help, they went upstairs but the police blocked the door. “We still managed to open it,” says Wensly. “We finally managed to push them out of the studio.
But the police will come back and try to break the door and the studio window.
I didn’t want to run into the same cops so I refused to go out. So they sent a tear gas grenade into my studio. We normally send it outside, not inside where everything is closed.
Michel Zecler
A dozen policemen finally enter the premises and violently remove Michel from the premises. “At that moment, I was getting beaten up on all sides. These words are confirmed by videos made by neighbors. The nine young boys were also arrested. “They made us a hedge of honor and they hit us all,” explains one of them.
Suspension of police officers
After identity checks at the police station, the young people are released, unlike Michel Zecler who is placed in police custody for reasons of rebellion. Thanks to the videos, his lawyer Hafida El Ali managed to prove her good faith. The public prosecutor’s office closed the case against him. “If we didn’t have the videos, my client might be in prison right now,” said the lawyer.
Following this report, things happened very quickly. The IGPN opened an investigation to shed light on the incident. The police are suspected of “violence” and “forgery”.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, also asked “the police prefect to suspend the police officers concerned as a precautionary measure. I hope that the disciplinary proceedings can be conducted as soon as possible. “A request that has been heard.
The first video of the beating in Michel Zecler’s studio “was already very shocking because it showed the unacceptable nature of the beating. The second is perhaps even more so. It shows a form of embarrassment, the impossibility for the police to control themselves, and it is one more testimony to the gravity of the situation,” analyses Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy at the Paris City Hall. He acknowledges “that the job of policeman is undeniably difficult, they need our support, but the Ministry of the Interior must open its eyes and the police must open its eyes”.
Emmanuel Macron spoke of “shame”. An investigation is underway. “His words are welcome.
He became aware of the immense emotion linked to this affair. There is a context of incredible racism, immense violence and the inability of a collective of police officers to manage things and tell their colleagues that enough is enough.
Emmanuel Grégoire
This new case of police violence against a racist background is in any case doing a good job in a country that denounces these more and more frequent blunders, especially when they occur in the United States of America, but which at the same time will soon strongly limit the dissemination of images of police officers on duty through the “global security” bill.
