INFO THE DEPECHE. Toulouse: “Ripoux” police officers 10 months in prison for two “lost people”
In February 2020, two police officers who freed a delivery man from racketeering were denounced, arrested, then indicted and imprisoned. Before the Toulouse Criminal Court, these two men removed from the national police are struggling to explain themselves.
Why one night, this peacekeeper and this brigadier, among dozens of controls decided to monetize their indulgence? “We can arrange…”, said the peacekeeper whose voice was recorded. The deliveryman, terrified at the idea of losing his license after speeding from Spain to Toulouse, gives the receipts for his deliveries, €395, plus the €15 present in the bottom of his pocket. He’s going back. “Don’t worry,” the policeman told him.
Except that his boss, mad with rage to see his recipe pass him by, a black man at the central police station in Toulouse and a complaint filed. “He paid dearly for it. Curiously, his vehicles had for several months requiring the PVs”, specifies his lawyer Me Claire Charbonnier. But the inspection of services, the police force, was seized and the two culprits soon taken into custody, then indicted and placed in detention.
Same age, same career, same depression
“At the start you denied, indicates Myriam Viargues, the president of the Toulouse criminal court looking at the two defendants: Frédéric and Karim, 46 years old. The first, rather dry, polo shirt, jeans, sports-style basketball. The second, shirt and pants out of fashion, eyes in the wave as if stunned by too many pills.These two, police officers in Colomiers assigned to the night brigade, crossed their misfortune, their depression between the summer of 2019 and February 2020. “He m was listening. I could confide”, confides Karim, brigadier, 20 years of police behind him, like his colleague.
On patrol, “they did not only do bad things”, specifies Frédéric’s lawyer, Me Pierre Alfort. But they also searched the garbage cans of fast food restaurants to find food (!) and they trapped at least five motorists – three proven and alleged facts between 2019 and the beginning of 2020. For a loot of 1000 €. Arrested, Karim still kept €540 in his pockets. “You don’t know what to do with it,” says the president. His colleagues almost hung him on the street. He lived in a cubbyhole or slept in “an old jew’s harp” despite his finished house and he had €145,000 in his accounts!
“These two are two crutches that are justified,” said Me Alexandre Parra-Bruguière, defender of Karim. “We were two lost. How did we come to this? I can’t explain myself,” admits Frédéric. They also relate to the responsibility of these crummy rackets. “These acts call into question important things and we find ourselves faced with two men who assume nothing”, annoys Me Caroline Barbot-Lafite, lawyer for one of the victims.
Depression “erected as a defense system”
What to push the indictment of the prosecutor, indignant “of offenses which call into question the very foundation of our democracy”. His words are heavy against depression “set up as a defense system” and “muddy” excuses on the theme “it’s not me, it’s him”. She requires three years in prison, including two years suspended and the prohibition to exercise the police profession.
The defense goes wild. “Whatever we say, do, it’s never okay, indignant Me Alfort. These two are self-validated. Without each other, nothing would have happened in this real professional suicide!” Me Parra-Bruguière is even more aggressive: “Ashamed? More than unacceptable false reports? Real shenanigans to mount big but false drug trafficking? Or the embezzlement of politicians? Let’s be serious. This man, exhausted, by accepting these little shenanigans, he still existed.”
The court kept the ideas of the defense: Frédéric and Karim were sentenced to 10 months in prison – they spent 11 months in pre-trial detention. The two civil parties were awarded €1,900 and €1,395 in damages, plus €1,200 for their legal costs.