French teen seeks justice after policeman beats, urinates on him

The mobile phone footage is shaky, but undeniable. A slender teenager sits in the harsh fluorescent glare of a police station in the Paris suburbs.

Towering above him is a municipal police officer in a dark blue uniform, his bulky frame accentuated by a bulletproof vest.

The officer taunts and intimidates the boy, grabs him by the collar, jerks him violently to one side of the bench and hits him hard across the head.

He is only 14 years old.

While shocking, it is not the worst of the abuse this minor suffered last year on March 17.

The police officer, identified as Cédric G, had allegedly urinated on him and one of his two 16-year-old friends earlier that night, after detaining the trio for breaching curfew rules in force during the coronavirus pandemic.

Also present on the scene was local police chief Yohan C, who allegedly told one of the 16-year-olds: “Since there are trees and you are Black, you could climb onto the trees.”
Media investigation

The case, recently exposed by French news site Mediapart, is the latest in a long line of police abuses which have come to light in France in recent times, often targeting Black and Arab men, demonstrating what rights groups term systemic brutality and racism in its security forces.

Despite being sacked by the municipality of Saint-Ouen last year in July, both Cédric G and Yohan C subsequently found municipal jobs elsewhere in the Paris region.

And, while Cédric G – still operating as a police officer – faces prosecution at Bobigny court on December 15, his former boss appears to be off the hook.

“Police officers know they are protected,” said Omer Mas Capitolin, a founder of the Community House for Supportive Development, one of six NGOs that last year raised a class action against the French government for systemic discrimination by police officers carrying out identification checks.

“These sorts of cases are widespread. Often people don’t speak out because it’s too humiliating,” he told Al Jazeera. “But those boys were lucky.”

As it turned out, the brother of one of the victims, an anti-crime agent with the national police force, immediately complained to the municipal authorities. But it was still their word against that of the sworn police officers.

Faced with a long litany of denials that any violence had occurred, supported by a bland police report on the supposedly routine ID checks carried out on the night, the case might have collapsed had the crucial video evidence not come to light.

But even though the falsehoods and cover-ups have since been exposed, justice is far from being done.

According to Mediapart, investigators were denied security camera footage from the location where the boys were detained and reportedly handcuffed and beaten, with the control centre claiming the footage had already been erased.