+ 96% of complaints against police blunders

Systematic handcuffing, insults, brutality sometimes leading to the death... The 2011 report of the Defender of Rights, Dominique Baudis, was submitted on June 25 to François Hollande [1]. It reports persistent police violence in 2011. While the overall number of cases received in the Defender's four areas of activity [2] fell by more than 3%, complaints about security ethics exploded: + 96%! This increase is largely explained by the fact that since 1^er May 2011, any citizen, victim or witness of a breach of ethics committed by the security forces, can contact the Defender of Rights.

“This figure, in view of the files handled, does not mean, however, an increase in the breaches committed by the security forces”, says the report. It still means that the blunders of the national police are not decreasing… When complaints concerning the municipal police represent 3,8% of complaints. This violence, often unpunished, gives rise to tensions and misunderstandings between the French population and the police, supposed to protect citizens.

La human rights league regrets the wording adopted in several statements by the Defender of Rights. A wording that is sometimes inappropriate… Regarding deaths that occurred during or following certain arrests, “the report simply finds that police officers "had lacked good judgment, using a disproportionate use of force" ». On May 9, 2008, in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes), the police thus "lack of discernment" against Hakim Ajimi, 22 years old. The young man died. Several witnesses of the scene reported that the officials continued to put pressure on the back and the neck of the young man while, handcuffed to the ground, he was asphyxiated. Tried in correctional in January 2012, the three police officers received suspended sentences. A lack of discernment of the court perhaps…