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After the death of 17-year-old Nahel during a police check, should the police be equipped with body cameras? Gérald Darmanin announced that “all bikers” should be able to wear one by the end of the year. But that shouldn’t fix everything.
It is a local resident who filmed the scene where we see a police officer opening fire on Nahel, 17 years old. There are no images of the scene filmed by the police, because the bikers are not equipped with body cameras. They wear an airbag in their uniform, and it is impossible to attach a harness and a camera to it. Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, said he would ensure that “by the end of the year, (…) all bikers“, police as gendarmerie, “can wear their body-worn camera“.
In the field, a mandatory body camera for each company
Since the drama of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), 600 magnetic fasteners, intended to fix the cameras, have been provided to the 2,000 motorcyclists of the national police. “It will allow to put the truth on the facts from the beginning to the end, of the actions of each“, observes Dominique Le Dourner, national secretary of the SGP Police unit. In the field, a pedestrian camera is compulsory for each company. It has four hours of autonomy, and the official can start it and turn off whenever he wants. Cameras do not settle all disputes, however. In the case Cedric Chouviata Parisian delivery man who died of suffocation during an arrest, one of the police had filmed the altercation, before cutting off his camera at the critical moment.