Four police officers were suspended for acts of violence committed against a person with a disability, filmed and disseminated on social networks, the High Commissioner of the Republic in French Polynesia announced on Saturday. The four police officers were also taken into police custody, Polynesian prosecutor Solène Belaouar told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the same day.
In the sequence, filmed on Friday night and taken from the balcony of a building in Papeete, four police officers surround a man in a wheelchair, then one of the officers lifts the chair and throws him to the ground. The latter manages to sit on the ground, but the same policeman throws a powerful hook in his face and the man falls again.
The video, forty-nine seconds long, is not contextualized and is filmed in the Estall neighborhood of Papeete, a disadvantaged area of the Tahitian capital. The sequence was authenticated by the service fact check of France Télévisions, says the channel La 1ère, a member of the French public audiovisual group.
“The High Commissioner decided on the immediate administrative suspension of the four agents involved, pending the results of the internal investigation opened by the territorial management of the national police.”The high commission, which represents France in this autonomous overseas community, indicated in a statement.
“I don’t know what preceded the video, but it still can’t justify these actions.”stated the prosecutor, who opened an investigation for “voluntary violence in meetings by a custodian of public authority on a vulnerable person.”
Wallace Teina, union delegate (Fuerza Obrera) within the territorial leadership of the national police, “Strongly condemns these acts of violence”. Interviewed by France Télévisions, he talks about his “surprise and anger” in a normal operation “very respectful of the population.”
