Toulouse. Controlled after the purchase of narcotics, Rémy claims that the police broke his leg
The Toulouse public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation after a complaint from a man who claimed to have been the victim of police violence. On July 12, during a check-up, his leg broke in his ankle. He had just bought drugs nearby.
“For five months, I have not been able to walk, I navigate between the crutches and the wheelchair. I have a broken malleolus and a torn ligament,” says Remy painfully.
On July 12, this construction worker took his lunch break. Dressed in his work clothes, he went to the tobacco shop, avenue de Grande-Bretagne in Toulouse, to buy cigarettes. “When leaving the store, people dressed in civilian clothes present themselves as police officers from the anti-crime squad. They ask me for my identity document,” recalls this thirty-something.
And during the traditional palpation, Rémy expressed his dissatisfaction. The police found drugs in his pockets. “Only two joints,” he says. The tone then rose, until the victim broke his ankle. “I took hits, then I felt my ankle break. I screamed,” said the man involved in the past in drug business. After several operations, the client of Me Christian Etelin was finally released from the hospital. He lodged a complaint with the gendarmerie.
At the same time, the two BAC team members also filed a complaint for contempt and rebellion. According to them, the victim had been caught in the act of buying drugs, which caused his identity check. Then she accidentally broke her ankle during the arrest after putting her foot in a hole on the road.
Simple accident or willful violence?
The Toulouse prosecutor’s office confirms that it has opened an investigation. Police violence or accident during arrest after a rebellion? The investigations will have to determine it.
Asked, the police specify that Rémy’s complaint is followed by the departmental director of public security in person. In parallel, another investigation is entrusted to the “discipline and ethics” service of the national police.