The sentence had shocked. Four months of suspended prison sentence were required on the evening of Thursday, November 4, evening in Bobigny against a police officer, betrayed by the video of a local resident. “A bicot like that, it does not swim” had uttered this policeman during the arrest of an Egyptian in April 2020.
“A police officer has a duty to set an example”, argued the prosecutor Loïc Pageot, who also demanded a fine of 1,000 euros. “Bicot has a special connotation even sixty years after the fact. When you fish someone, these words keep all their meaning”, underlined the prosecutor Pageot, referring to the massacre of Algerian demonstrators on October 17, 1961 in Paris. The bodies of several dozen victims were thrown into the Seine
Against the six other police officers prosecuted for violence at the direct summons of the civil party, the public prosecutor did not request a conviction, for lack of formal proof. “No one saw what happened”, he noted. On April 26, 2020 at around 1:30 a.m., police officers arrested on Île-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) an Egyptian national suspected of theft of equipment on a construction site and who had tried, according to police sources, to flee by jumping into the Seine. On the facts of theft, the case was dismissed.
Once on the bank, “they all hit me”, hammered the young man. The violence continued “in the van” and “all the way to the police station”, said the 29-year-old worker, who had “fear” to file a complaint because in an irregular situation.
It is “a joke in bad taste”, defended the official who used the offensive term. “I needed to decompress and make the gallery laugh”, said the 26-year-old policeman, from the night staff of the Territorial Directorate of Public Security of Hauts-de-Seine. “I regret this joke”, continued the elongated official wearing a sober blue suit.
The second policeman who admitted the offensive remarks also mentioned “a schoolboy joke for fun”. Another pleaded “a moment of” humor “. “We are humans after all”. “A police officer above all!”, retorted the prosecutor. Four anti-racist associations (Licra, MRAP, LDH, SOS Racisme) have become civil parties in this case.