French Police Officers Who Beat a Black Man on Camera to Stand Trial
Four police officers in France were ordered to stand trial on Friday on charges that they assaulted a Black man in November 2020. The beating, which was caught on a security camera, fueled intense debates about police brutality in the country.
But the investigative judges who sent the case to trial dropped charges that two of the officers had acted with a racist motive. The judges said there was not enough evidence to support the accusation of the man, Michel Zecler, a music producer well known in the world of French rap, that the officers had hurled a racial slur at him during the episode.
The removal of the racism charge does not change the maximum sentence that the two officers face, nor will it prohibit Mr. Zecler from speaking freely about his experience at trial. But his legal team expressed disappointment.
'We regret that the aggravating circumstance was not taken into account,' Agence-France Presse quoted Caroline Toby, one of Mr. Zecler's lawyers, as saying on Friday, referring to the racism charge. She added that evidence and testimonies had confirmed Mr. Zecler's account.
Three of the officers are accused of assaulting Mr. Zecler at his Paris music studio and filing a misleading police report, according to the city's prosecutor's office. Their report said that Mr. Zecler had violently resisted arrest after an ID check; the video showed that the officers had beat him.
Charged mainly with forgery and aggravated assault, they face 15-year prison sentences and fines of €225,000, about $264,000. They have been identified only as Aurélien L., Philippe T. and Pierre P., in accordance with French custom.
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