2023-12-20 01:29:29
Relatives of Steve Maia Caniço, during a gathering organized a month after the disappearance of the young man in the Loire, in Nantes, July 20, 2019. SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS / AFP
“Relieved. » The family of Steve Maia Caniço, a 24-year-old young man who drowned in the Loire on the night of the 2019 Music Festival, in Nantes, following a police charge aimed at dispersing a techno evening, is “relieved” after the investigating judges, responsible for identifying the circumstances of the tragedy, ordered, on December 18, to refer the commissioner who carried out this intervention to the criminal court. For the two magistrates, Dominique Blanc and Guy Magnier, Commissioner Grégoire Chassaing must be tried for “involuntary manslaughter”.
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In his final indictment dated November 30, 2022, the public prosecutor of Rennes, Philippe Astruc, denounced “the errors committed in the conduct of the police intervention” operated on Quai Wilson – a place without the slightest parapet which accommodated sound systems – and more specifically “the use of tear gas grenades by law enforcement”.
The investigations carried out as part of the judicial information, notes Mr. Astruc, have “established with precision and certainty” the time of the fall in the Loire of Mr. Maia Caniço, i.e. June 22, 2019, at 4:33 and 14 seconds, “during the police intervention and after the first use of tear gas grenades which took place at 4:31 a.m.”.
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After the police were subjected to projectiles, the forces under the direction of the commissioner used thirty-three tear gas grenades, ten de-encirclement grenades and, on twelve occasions, defensive bullet launchers, in the middle of the night. without referring it upstream to the hierarchy. An inadequate response, points out Mr. Astruc, stressing that an MP7 type tear gas grenade can cover “an area of up to 1,000 square meters”.
“Characteristic misconduct”
After producing an initial erroneous analysis, the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) wrote a new report, in May 2021, reporting“a moment of panic and general disorientation” party participants after tear gas canisters were fired.
Commissioner Grégoire Chassaing, according to Mr. Astruc, implemented “operations of progression and arrest, without immediately prohibiting significant use” of these weapons, even though “other solutions were possible, notably that of a withdrawal”. To his eyes, “the use of inappropriate means in view of the situation appears to constitute a gross fault having contributed to the fall in the Loire and the death of Steve Maia Caniço”.
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