A Police Officer Exposes Hundreds of Cases of Abuse and Racism in the Cells of the Paris High Court

A Chief Brigadier whistleblower and several hundred internal documents allowed StreetPress to expose systematic racist abuse in the cells of the Paris High Court.

Paris High Court (75) – The enormous glass building rises 38 stories into the sky and descends at least three levels underground. Every day, almost 9,000 people throng into this court, the largest in Europe. The depot[1] or detention center, tucked away on the first and second basement levels, is the site of most of the acts uncovered in this investigation. The defendants are held in a row of bare-walled cells without any natural light before and after they appear before the judge. Nearly 200 police officers are assigned to guard the 120 cells day and night. For more than two years, two dozen officers on night shift carried out a reign of terror in this aseptic basement as they had previously in the squalid conditions of the old court.

 

Systematic Abuse in the depot

Using the whistleblower testimony of Chief Brigadier Amar Benmohamed (Officer of the Criminal Investigation Department) and numerous sources as well as several hundred internal documents (reports, emails, notes…) StreetPress has uncovered an unprecedented number of acts committed at the very heart of France’s judiciary: in the cells of the depot, more than one thousand people were subjected to humiliations and insults that were often racist or homophobic in nature or were denied food, water or medical care… Some of the officers involved also allegedly took advantage of prison transfers to steal cash or small electronic devices from those in custody who could not speak French.

“Altogether, over a span of slightly more than two years, more than one thousand detainees were mistreated. And probably even more,” charges Chief Brigadier Benmohamed, a union representative with Unité SGP-Police. For Arié Alimi, the lawyer representing the whistleblower, “the acts disclosed are extraordinarily serious and reveal a felonious system in which they were committed with impunity. This tarnishes the entire criminal justice system of the High Court as well as its rulings.”

Our investigation does not end there. In that sub-basement, certain officers appear to have been given free rein and even targeted their colleagues. Testimony and documents show incidents of sexual and moral harassment and racist insults…

The totality of these facts over the last three years has been the subject of several written reports to which StreetPress gained access. In addition, at least three separate investigations were conducted by the National Police General Inspectorate [the internal investigative body or IGPN). In each case, according to our information, the reported facts were confirmed by several officers. However, not a single sanction has been imposed to date and justice has not been done in response to these facts[2]. The principal accused even saw their careers advance and received the transfers they requested. Out of a sense of solidarity and the fear of scandal, no doubt, Amar Benmohamad’s superiors deliberately covered up the case. That is why he decided to open up to StreetPress: “The reason I’m speaking out today is that I did everything I could [internally] to resolve this situation and failed.”

Even though he could have requested anonymity, Amar Benmohamed chose to testify openly at the risk of destroying his career: “I take responsibility for everything I say,” he, the interested party, says soberly in a calm voice. “I have to do everything possible to change things.”

 

The Valls classes

His decision to fight this battle to the end was made on the night from March 11th to 12th, 2019. That day a policewoman harshly berated a detainee who had requested a dinner without pork:

“You’ll take what we give you. We’ve had it with wogs. They’re the real pain in our asses in France.”

Just a few meters away, officers sitting at the desks with the door open hear the racist slur. “They got up to intervene,” Chief Brigadier Benmohamed recalls, “but the superiors’ only reaction of was to transfer her to a different posting for the night shift.” No sanction, barely a reprimand.

It is one incident too many. Because for more than two years Benmohamed had been urging his direct superiors to take action. Without success. This time, he decided to aim higher and threatened to “take it upstairs.” In other words, to inform the magistrates. To lower the temperature, his commanding officer asked him to write up a report. Chief Brigadier Benmohamed complied… And sent copies to several officers of higher rank. It was a way to prevent them from stifling his voice. It had all been going on too long: this systemic “abuse” perpetrated by “an organized group” had been occurring for more than two years:

“Some of the cases could almost be called torture.”

The abuse began in the first half of 2017, in the old court located on the Île de la Cité. At the time, part of the manpower in the “group 1” of pre-trial detention—“experienced guys and girls”—was transferred and replaced by officers just out of the police academy. “It was the start of the Valls classes,” (they were called this because at the time, Manuel Valls was serving as interior minister then prime minister) Amar Benmohamed explained. A senior police officer concurred to StreetPress:

“They were recruited in response to the terrorist attacks. To put it simply, some were there to defend the imperiled Christian West. The level of racism was quite high.”

Racist and homophobic insults.

As soon as they were posted in the court’s detention center, these young recruits indulged in inappropriate behavior according to the chief brigadier. And they initiated the toxic dynamic. “They called all the defendants ‘the bastards’. ‘Any food left for the bastards?’ or ‘Take that bastard back to his cell.’ The term became part of their vocabulary and everyone followed suit, high-ranking officers included. All but two officers.”

Soon after they arrived, Amar Benmohamed noticed an increase in incidents with the detainees. He decided to take a closer look at the new recruits. What he discovered over the next months is staggering. Dozens of racist insults. “Shut up, filthy wog”, “nigger”, “dirty race”, or even more terrible: 

“I’d throw all of you in the Seine.”

“If I could, I’d set fire to all these merguez.”

Some nights, one of the policewomen allegedly used the microphone reserved for general announcements (evacuations or jailbreaks, etc.) to wake everyone in the cells by shouting:

“Let’s go, on your feet you wogs and niggers, enough sleep. Time to wake up.”

A major, who witnessed the scene called it “nothing more than hazing”. Sometimes the insults took on a homophobic cast. “Dirty faggot”, “Go get fucked”, Amar Benmohamed recites in a calm voice. He gives only a handful of examples. The litany is endless:

“It happened almost daily. We (he and colleagues who refused to join in) tried to keep track but that was impossible. Several hundred people were insulted in the holding cells. And that’s just for insults…”

 

Denied food, water and access to doctors

Each time he witnessed an incident, the chief brigadier intervened. March 2018, a terrorist’s girlfriend, until recently a minor, was taken to the depot one night before being brought before a judge. The judicial police officer found the girl in tears, pleading for a glass of water, which the officers had refused to give her. He reprimanded one of the policewomen guarding the detainee and asked her to get a cup. The officer’s answer was fiery:

“If it were up to me, I’d cut her throat and let her bleed to death.”

The judicial police officer raised his voice and the policewoman complied. But, as always, when his back was turned the abuse resumed. “Several colleagues informed me because there are also some great people working there,” he said emphatically. “Because the higher ups did nothing.” The guards continued to deny requests for water until the court was moved in April, 2018: the new cells are furnished with faucets. On the other hand, denying food was standard practice during the night shift for more than two years. In his report of 12 March 2019, Chief Brigadier Amar Benmohamed recounts:

“Along with verbal shaming while they are being searched, the detainees who had the ‘misfortune’ of engaging in verbal sparring […] were sometimes denied food (once placed in their cells) for several hours, sometimes for the entire night.”

Some officers had the habit of spitting in the meals or tossing the trays on the ground “as if feeding dogs”. They even told some Muslim detainees that the food contained pork, so that the prisoners would refuse to eat of their own accord.

In his report of 12 March 2019, Chief BrigadierAmar Benmohamed details the privations and violations of the detainees right to food or medical care.

Another retaliatory measure listed in the report: “In addition, when the detainees asked to be examined by a doctor […] the police officer or officers engaged in the “collision” would lie to the detainee, claiming that the doctor would come the following morning, and at the same time would record in the log […] that the detainee had refused a medical examination.”

 

Cells turned into pressure cookers

This illegal conduct transformed the holding cells into a pressure cooker. Sometimes quite literally because in the overcrowded and unsanitary cells of the old court located on the Île de la Cité, the heat could be suffocating. “I learned that some officers would regularly turn off the ventilation in the old court,” our source said with a sigh. “Inside, where sometimes more than 15 people were being held, it was a real oven.” These are people who arrived at the old court after 24 or 48 hours—sometimes even 96 hours—of detention, exhausted by the interrogations and nights in cells. “They’re dirty, they’re hungry. Sometimes they’ve lost everything and are under great stress before facing a judge.” Their entire life hangs in the balance. Add to that excessive temperatures, “more than 40 degrees”, with no water or food:

“Yes, I believe that is close to torture.”

The 12 March 2019 is not the first time that Amar Benmohamed reported illegal conduct perpetrated by some of his colleagues. In late summer 2018, the chief brigadier denounced thefts committed by several of these young officers. The police had established an efficient technique to pocket cash. On busy days, they volunteered to open a second lockbox to hold the “searches” (all the objects that the detainees had on them). Once out of sight of prying eyes, the associates stole a portion of the cash or small electronic devices (a tablet, for example). The stolen objects were then simply not recorded on the itemizations of the searches. One of these officers, caught red-handed by a colleague, allegedly claimed:

“The bastard (an Asian man) can’t speak a word of French. No one gives a shit about him.” When asked by this same colleague about the risk the man in custody might cause a scandal, he allegedly replied:

“Relax, I’ve got this. It’s a bastard’s word against ours and I only target guys who can’t speak French.”

The thefts committed by officers in this service were not limited to money and electronics. In 2016 and 2017, significant amounts of narcotics are said to have disappeared from the “Cuzco room”. This room at the heart of the medical-judicial unit of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital is guarded by the same police department. This, notably, is where the “mules” smuggling narcotics who are intercepted in airports are brought to defecate the packets containing the drugs. According to our sources, following the disappearance of narcotics, the IGPN opened an investigation and at least ten officers posted in the detention center were interviewed. We do not know if any light was shed on who was responsible and we have no evidence to connect this incident to the police officers implicated in the events described above.

 

Verified facts

According to our reporting, several officers before the IGPN or their superiors confirmed the thefts of cash reported in 2018 as well as the abuse and racist insults reported the following year. The accused officers’ immediate superiors were also aware of these problems. This is evidenced by a series of emails sent by high-ranking officers, reminding the guards in the depot of certain rules. In one of these we read, for example:

“Comments of a racist/offensive/discriminatory nature, whether with regard to the detainees or even other officers, constitute serious infractions subject to legal and administrative action. As such, they are prohibited.”

“Furthermore, I place particular importance on the detainees’ ability to enjoy the totality of their rights, especially meals, beverages, medical care and a blanket.”

There are many additional emails, all signed by a superior officer, with reminders of the rules governing the use of surveillance cameras, notably specifying that filming screens with smartphones is prohibited and referring repeatedly to “incidents” or “problems”. Amar Benmohamed decodes them:

“We had a few guys who filmed the surveillance screens when there were celebrities in the depot cells. They’d use the videos later to show off in front of girls.”

He also recalls that certain officers took pictures of public figures in situations that were not to their advantage. “Alexandre Benalla, for example.” When contacted by StreetPress, the latter confirmed that a photograph (later published in the weekly Le Point) had been taken by an officer without his permission.

Many lawyers have heard accounts of abuse directly from their clients. Of the 20 attorneys contacted, ten confirmed to StreetPress that they had received such feedback. “This kind of behavior is very often reported” says Philippe-Henri Honegger. “In one of every two consultations, my clients complain of being denied food,” Amélie Carron says. “I have, indeed, received reports of multiple harassment,” Camille Vannier reports. Furthermore, a defense attorney’s report that StreetPress was able to consult contains testimony by several students at the Lycée Arago—on 22 June 2018, 102 students were arrested after occupying the school building—that they had been mistreated in detention.

 

Harassment

The criminal behavior of certain police officers stationed in the Paris High Court depot was also targeted at their colleagues. One report describes an altercation between two police officers that included threatening gestures and racist insults. Two other officers claim they also were subjected to “moral harassment” by their colleagues. In a report from August 2019, the first denounces “degrading comments and repeated threats” made against her in the encounter. She is reproached for taking sick leave that impacted her colleagues’ schedules. “I guess you’re not expecting to be very well received when you return!” one of the officers threatened in an email. In her report, the victim specifies:

“I’ll add that two other colleagues who were also on medical leave or recovering from a service-related injury got the same treatment and similar comments.”

On her return to work, she is greeted by a veritable welcoming committee. A policewoman was allegedly “verbally aggressive, with her face barely two centimeters from mine.” She apparently shouted at the victim:

“Colleagues like you should be slapped in the face. Even the superior officers are sick of you.”

She concludes her report with: “I want to emphasize that the entire staff of the night squad was aware of these events.” After this attack, the policewoman was put on sick leave and an investigation was opened by the IGPN.

Several young policewomen also complained of suggestive and inappropriate remarks made by their superiors. One of them is, in fact, charged for behavior that could qualify as sexual harassment. For example, “he said to female colleagues: ‘I can tell you your measurements just by looking at you,’” Amar Benmohamed reports. He didn’t stop at words. “He would put his hand on those of young officers’ or grab them by their hips.” Some dare to rebuff this superior officer but others, according to several written documents consulted by StreetPress, would arrive at the court building with “their stomachs in knots.”

 

No sanctions

How long did this go on? On 12 March 2019, Amar Benmohamed’s written whistleblowing account of repeated racist slurs and serial abuse forced the commanding officers to react: he copied several senior officers. And even if, as our second investigation shows, there was an obvious desire by the administration to bury the affair—all the way up to Prefect Lallement’s office—the IGPN was caught. To this day, there have been no sanctions and no judicial proceedings have been instigated. There has only been a wave of personnel changes. This is no punishment because the accused officers were granted transfers they requested. This turnover in staffing has calmed things down during the night shift at the detention center according to Chief Brigadier Benmohamed.

Chief Brigadier Benmohamed, 48, denounced acts of abuse and racism at the heart of the detention center over the course of three years / Caption Credit Yann Castanier

Has the page been definitively turned? It’s not clear… Streetpress has learned of two accounts of incidents following the wave of personnel changes which correspond exactly to the criminal behavior of certain officers at the detention center.

In December 2019, the lawyer Camille Vannier counsels three Chad nationals. Released from detention, the trio complained of having been denied food:

“They saw that others were given meals but they weren’t. They also told me about the mockery they were subjected to. But because their French is halting, they couldn’t give me the exact wording.”

Another incident. On 15 June 2020, Gaspard D was brought to the court after detention. Just before his appearance before the magistrates, he wa put in a small room adjoining the courtroom. There, just a few meters from the judges, the abusive treatment and the insults began, his lawyer Hanna Rajbenbach recounted. The defendant reported: “I told them I was rather weak and asked if they could bring me food or call a doctor.” The officers refused. And so, in order to get access to a doctor, Gaspard D. started banging on the door. “They responded with mockery and insults.” Worse, the jeering persists even during the hearing:

“In the dock, they whispered insults like “son of a bitch” or things related to what was being said in the hearing.”

For example, the prosecutor mentions the death of his biological father. “They told me I got what I deserved.” When he was returned to his cell, the insults continued.

“It was a constant stream. ‘Go back to your whore of a psychiatrist,’ ‘I’m fucking your girlfriend,’ ‘if you’re hungry, suck my dick,’ ‘pussy’…” All the way back to the cells, where the abuse resumed. “My dinner was cold. They took away my mattress and blanket the next morning, in retaliation.”

Some officers implicated in our investigation are still employed in the depot. The staff has not changed, and the majority of the officers have even been promoted.

 

EPISODE 2: How the police administration tried to bury the incidents of abuse at the High Court

 

Article heading: Chief Brigadier Benmohamed informed his superiors of systematic abuse and racism in the depot of the Paris High Court. Not a single officer was punished. Worse, the administration and the office of Prefect Lallement tried to bury the affair.

It was an affair the police administration wanted to bury at all costs. For more than three years, Chief Brigadier Amar Benmohamed, head of a unit in the Paris High Court (TGI), had been reporting numerous acts of abuse in the depot jail. In their cells, defendants called to appear before a judge were subject to acts of humiliation, insults often of a racist or homophobic nature, denial of food or water and denial of medical care by the police officers… Daily. These incidents have been confirmed by other officers. There have been more than one thousand victims according to the whistleblower.

And yet, in a document addressed to the IGPN, a senior officer harshly attacked the whistleblowing officer, whom he accuses of “a lack of loyalty.”

Between the lines, he seems to be calling for Chief Brigadier Amar Benmohamed to be punished instead of the racist officers. This deputy commissioner writes:

“Independent of the truth of the reported incidents, the method used by Benmohamed raises real questions. His lack of loyalty and his instinctive mistrust of his superior officers indicate an attitude that warrants criticism. We cannot submit to the blackmail he is exerting.”

“As soon as you call attention to a problem in the police department, you become the problem,” Chief Brigadier Amar Benmohamed says with a sigh in one of StreetPress’s editorial offices. If the whistleblower has decided to air his testimony publicly, it’s because he has exhausted every internal avenue. As documents obtained by StreetPress show, the entire administration of the department at the depot were aware of the reported incidents. The chief brigadier explained that they rose all the way to the office of the Paris Prefecture, led by Didier Lallement. And yet they were buried.[3] Since he first alerted the IGPN in 2018, no sanctions have been made and no judicial proceedings have been instigated.[4]

The chief brigadier’s lawyer, Arié Alimi declared emphatically:

“The judicial and police authorities’ stated determination to cover up and bury this criminality in the system is aggravated by retaliatory measures taken against the brave officers who tried to resist or denounce it. Their determination to silence my client is manifest and in itself constitutes a new criminal violation that must not be tolerated.”

 

Any means necessary to bury the affair

Around two o’clock in the morning on the 12 March 2019, in the precinct of the TGI, the umpteenth racist slur hurled by a policewoman against a detainee, made Chief Brigadier Benmohamed blow his top.[5] As did the superior officers’ indifference to the situation. He had been reporting this kind of behavior to them for two years. Without success. So this time, he told them he would take his complaint to the upper floors of the court house to inform magistrates of criminal acts committed in their court house.  In order to calm the situation, his commanding officer asked him to write up a report. Amar Benmohamed complied. But instead of sending the report only to his immediate superior as is the usual procedure, he sent the document to several high-ranking officers before going home. “I told myself I’d return that afternoon to discuss the matter with them and then be able to sleep for a bit,” he recalled.

At the depot, his report was taken as a declaration of war. Amar’s superior officer requested that he return immediately—“It’s urgent, the boss wants to see you”—and called a crisis meeting. Around the table were seated the commanding officers of the depot, the security service and the High Court police (SGSTP), and several other officers of high rank. They implied an order not to spread information about the affair outside the national police, carefully balancing the carrot and the stick.

“They told me: ‘Think of the institution,’ ‘think collectively,’ ‘you did well,’ ‘there will be wide-spread changes.’”

They also promised there would be “difficulties” if he informed a judge. We have to maintain good relations with the upper echelons, he was told. It would therefore be best if the magistrates do not know what happens under their feet. The office of the president of the high court (TGI) stated to StreetPress that it was not aware of the incidents mentioned. Neither the team of Stéphane Noël, the current president of the Paris TGI, nor that of his predecessor were alerted. The governing body responded indignantly: “If the incidents you are reporting are verified, it is completely unacceptable.”

This situation disgusted the chief brigadier. “The officers of the judicial police are required to inform the public prosecutor of crimes, infractions and infringements that come to their attention,” he says in a choked voice. He stresses: “This is a serious violation of the law, one that, in theory, must be reported to the department of justice.”

 

The prefecture is aware

The administration of the police department was nonetheless conscious of the gravity of the affair. When Amar Benmohamed was summoned to the IGPN offices, he was questioned in person by division’s commissary, the head of the police of the police. For an officer of her rank to solicit the testimony directly indicates that it was a sensitive situation, an inside source confirmed. But Chief Brigadier Benmohamed soon became disillusioned. He verifies that he received a letter confirming the registration of his report sent from Prefect Lallement’s office (the prefecture is responsible for the depot in the TGI). The document requested the IGPN proceed with the investigation and do what is necessary to shed light on incidents of racism and abuse. In Amar Benmohamed’s view, commissioning the IGPN without alerting the department of justice was, once again, a way to bury the affair. The IGPN is only authorized “to interview, nothing else,” Amar explained. No one is held in “custody, there are no searches or any other coercive measures”:

“Normally a judicial inquiry is launched for serious cases and the prosecutor is informed.”

The IGPN, however, did conduct several dozen interviews. According to our sources, several officers confirmed the incidents in the course of the questioning. And yet, one year after the events, not a single magistrate has been enlisted. No punishments have been ordered.

 

Bullied by his superiors

This is not the first time Amar Benmohamed has been silenced. In the summer of 2018, he informed his superior officers and then the IGPN that thefts of money and small electronic devices were occurring within the depot. The corrupt officers targeted non-French speaking prisoners. He was questioned several times by the police department’s internal investigative body. Even then, other officers corroborated his claims. And yet no measures were taken against the accused officers.

Worse, five weeks after having reported these thefts, Amar himself was the object of an investigation by the compensation and discipline committee (URD) for not following the chain of command. He was reprimanded for not having informed his superiors before speaking to the IGPN! That is false and he can prove it. The investigation would be classified, but none of his superiors had forbidden him from speaking to the administration.

After this initial testimony to the internal investigators, he was subject to “multiple humiliations” on the part of higher-ranking officers, which constitute real harassment when strung together. Amar lists examples, one after the other: “They wouldn’t allow me to have a professional email account or even a signature stamp, my traineeship applications are denied, I’m rebuked for working overtime…”

Chief Brigadier Benmohamed ran the transfer unit. He and his staff were charged with taking prisoners who have been sentenced from the depot to various prisons in the Île-de-France. In April 2019, he learned that his superior officer had forbidden him from physically participating in the prisoner transfers. He must “stay in the office” to take care of administrative tasks. In an email, Amar “implored” him to reconsider his decision. He explained that “three-quarters of the staff are trainees or very young titular police officers” and accompanying them in the field addresses “a real concern about training and supervision.” His boss’s reply arrived a few hours later. Without denying the facts, the message was clear:

“Chief, if you have comments you’d like to make, do so in a report. As for the rest, please follow the instructions given.”

The same commander went so far as to leak within the service the names of the officers summoned before the IGPN to corroborate Amar Benmohamed’s accusations. In November 2019, he forwarded a communication with the internal investigators to most of the depot staff and notably to a number of officers implicated in the charges. The confidentiality of the investigation was put at risk and the leak, catastrophically, not stopped for almost forty hours. A communication seen by StreetPress shows that a major likely deleted the commander’s email and asked three officers in the depot to “never mention it and act as if they were never aware of the email.”

At the end of June 2020, another low blow. Benmohamed’s superiors decided to require that he undergo a medical examination. He is on sick leave and therefore unable to go. The chief brigadier worries that they are trying to make him look crazy. Incredible? Not really. A note acquired by StreetPress reveals that one of his superiors had already planned to silence him in this manner in May 2019. Amar Benmohamed wrote up a report detailing problems with delays in transferring the prisoners. Although the matter was a technical one, the division command was irritated. At the bottom of the report, the obviously annoyed superior officer adds a handwritten, signed comment requesting that “M. Benmohamed undergo a medical examination for an opinion on his mental state.” In the end, the superior officer would retract this request.

 

“I’m not talking here, there are traitors”

The chief brigadier was bullied by his colleagues:

“If you write against a colleague in the office, you become a traitor and it follows you your entire life.”

Some colleagues stopped saying hello, others refused to talk to him at all. Occasionally, when he entered a room, he heared phrases such as “I’m not talking here, there are traitors.” Or officers headed to their superiors’ offices to discuss certain problems, making sure he overheard them say: “We’re going to be betrayed again.”

Ultimately, not a single police officers implicated in these criminal incidents was punished. Of the two dozen officers, ten were transferred to posts they had requested in the fall of 2019. Four immediate superiors of these officers, who had regularly witnessed the infractions, were also promoted to higher ranks. Chief Brigadier Amar Benmohamed has decided to register a complaint with a civilian board about the harassment he experienced, StreetPress was told by his lawyer Arié Alimi.

 

[1] This jail has since been renamed the Compagnie de Gare de la Zone D’Attente (CGZA [the Holding Company of the Detention Zone]). Because the people we interviewed continue to call it the “depot”, we decided to retain this term in our investigation.
[2] When contacted by StreetPress, the Ministry of Justice forwarded our questions to the public prosecutor’s office, “the only one authorized to respond if an investigation is pending” (which they do not specify). The latter explained that “all the facts brought to the attention of the public prosecutor’s office instigated judicial investigations, entrusted to the IGPN.” According to another source, only isolated facts were brought to the attention of the prosecutor’s office: “There is, a priori, no encompassing investigation into the acts committed by a group over a period of time,” our source claims.

The prosecutor’s office has also informed us that “six representatives of the Controlling Body of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL) carried out a site inspection of the depot from October 7th to 9th, 2019, after which they sent a provisional report dated 19 December 2019 to the heads of jurisdiction.” This report has not yet been made public, the CGLPL told StreetPress. As mentioned above, the governing body of the High Court (TGI) told StreetPress that it is not aware of the acts reported. Neither the team of Stéphane Noël, the current president of the Paris TGI, nor that of his predecessor were alerted (and yet, the governing body maintains it raised isolated incidents two or three times). “If the incidents you are reporting are verified, it is completely unacceptable,” the governing body concludes.

For its part, the Paris Prefecture of Police, claimed it is “particularly sensitive to the need for monitoring and supervising young personnel” and assured furthermore that “when a report is made of acts that could be qualified as criminal offenses, the judicial system is notified by the police administration and the public prosecutor’s office then decides which department is best suited to investigate, including the IGPN where appropriate. Taking into account the need to respect the confidentiality of the investigation, the Prefecture of Police will not comment on judicial proceedings in progress.”
[3] See footnote 2            
[4] Following our revelations, the prefecture announced on 27 July that a disciplinary council would be held in September 2020 for one officer and that five other officers were being notified of reprimands and warnings. When the prefecture answered our questions the morning of 27 July, they did not inform us of these measures.
[5] Amar Benmohamed is a union member. He is a representative of the SGP Police Union.