Six police officers from a local brigade in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis) are on trial in Bobigny court from Wednesday on charges of violence and false reports.
For three days, the criminal court will investigate the actions of these members of the Territorial Contact Brigade (BTC), who have jurisdiction over cities known to have drug trafficking going on.
The case began in 2020, when Pantin’s commissioner submitted to the courts numerous complaints from local residents about the behavior of the police officers of this BTC, one of the two in this town on the outskirts of Paris.
As successors to the local police force, these units are assigned to specific parts of the city and carry out intelligence work there, while enjoying a degree of freedom of action.
BTC Quatre-Chemins serves the cities of Courtillières and Scandicci.
The survey focuses on the period 2019-2020 and reveals numerous acts of violence against young people in these neighborhoods, falsification of reports or fake arrests.
“We think they’re a little undesirable, we suspect they’re in traffic, we want them cleared. So either we falsely expose facts that accuse them, or we hit them,” a source familiar with the matter told AFP.
In one of the cases, a police officer broke a youth’s hand with a baton, resulting in a 45-day total incapacity to work (ITT).
In another incident, police officers are accused of hiding drugs under a bank to justify an arrest.
Of the eight BTC officers originally taken into custody in February 2021, Bobigny prosecutors have opened proceedings against six of them, ranging in age from 30 to 48.
Fourteen people filed civil complaints in the courts, but not all potential victims have been identified.
At the administrative level, the six accused “have changed all their tasks since the alleged acts,” the Paris police headquarters told the AFP news agency.
“For one of them, a referral to the Disciplinary Board and for the others a temporary ban from office for three days has been proposed,” she added. These methods are still under investigation.