The police officer responsible for the fatal shooting of Nahel in Nanterre in June was released on Wednesday November 15 and placed under judicial supervision. A decision welcomed as a “relief” by the various police unions, like Mathieu Vallet, spokesperson for the independent union of commissioners, invited on Franceinfo.
After rejecting several requests for release, the investigating judge in charge of the investigation authorized the placement under judicial supervision of the police officer responsible for the fatal shooting of Nahel. The 38-year-old civil servant spent a little over 5 months in prison. Mathieu Vallet, spokesperson for the Independent Union of Commissioners, was the guest of franceinfo.
Franceinfo: How did you react to the announcement of this decision of freedom under judicial supervision?
Mathieu Vallet: First of all, it’s a relief because he is presumed innocent and from the start, he had a pall of guilt hanging over his head. He is incarcerated even though from the start he presented the guarantees of representation with which judicial review would have been sufficient. Moreover, five months later, the facts prove him right since he is under judicial supervision. He’s a police officer, he’s not a scoundrel: he didn’t rob a bank, he didn’t attack anyone. He judged the action to be the best possible in a tenth of a second. Justice will appreciate it. In any case, he is with his wife and his child whom he has not seen for five months. And when we are a police officer today, we know that we risk not only our lives, but also our legal security. We can either end up in a coffin or we can end up in prison because we’re trying to protect people and that’s what we should be worried about.
Do you fear reactions after this decision?
It is not the street that governs the country and it is even less the cities that govern court decisions. The primary motivation of the magistrates who had kept him in detention for almost five months was public order. So, obviously, the rioters had bought justice in the decision which each time governed the continued detention of our colleague. Today it came out. Justice continues, it obviously does not stop. The police officer is at the disposal of the magistrates and therefore, if outside, it turns out that urban violence or abuses are being carried out, anti-crime brigades, but also mobile forces such as the CRS and squadrons of mobile gendarmerie, are planned to secure notably the department of Hauts-de-Seine and the town of Nanterre, from which Nahel comes.
“We obviously do not despise and do not forget the death which followed the police action.”
Matthew Valletat franceinfo
But once again, we must put things in context: a police officer tried to make the best decision to protect his life and that of his colleague in a tenth of a second.
What remains of this story after four months of pre-trial detention? Did she leave any traces?
Yes, it left its mark. Because today, refusal to comply is a true national sport. We have a refusal to comply every 20 minutes. An individual we are trying to question is not for fun, it is not for taking risks, it is not for playing. Starsky and Hutch on the road, it is to avoid there being innocent victims. The reality is that when I see people taking risks for your life, for ours, for that of road users, we have no other choice but to try to intercept them. And when they take all the risks and they do not comply with the agents’ orders, or even worse, they want to hurt or kill them, we are obliged to use the means at our disposal. Killing someone is never fun. Except that in a tenth of a second, it’s very complicated on public roads to make the best decision. Taking someone’s life is never a police officer’s goal. But when he has no choice, he does what he can with the means he has and especially the training he has.