https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/23/suffocating-french-delivery-driver-cedric-chouviat-last-words-george-floyd-case
by Kim Willsher
Excerpts:
A French delivery driver who died after being arrested in Paris pleaded, “I’m suffocating” several times as police held him to the ground.
Footage has emerged of 42-year-old Cédric Chouviat saying he could not breathe seven times in 22 seconds as officers pinned him to the ground.
Four police officers are being questioned for “involuntary homicide” over the arrest near the Eiffel Tower in January that echoes the death of George Floyd in the US that has sparked worldwide protests and Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
Police said they stopped Chouviat on his scooter after claiming he was looking at his mobile phone and had a dirty licence plate. Officers say he was disrespectful and abusive and resisted arrest.
However, a report by the National Gendarmerie Institute for Criminal Research suggested the exchanges between the police and the delivery driver were “correct”, although officers may have felt he was being “provocative” or “defiant”.
According to witnesses quoted by Le Monde, the officers held Chouviat, a father of five, in a chokehold, a restraint technique that was banned by the interior minister, Christophe Castaner, this month, then reinstated after complaints from police.
I'm disgusted with all the hate creating messages on this thread. Do you really not understand what you are doing? Yes, it's all bad shit, but by posting this you're not digging down to the core of the problem. You're just helping to create more hatred and fear and division...
Oh how they like us to be divided...
I AM A RACIST!!! I truly am..
I love Asian women, and I don't like black women.
I am also especially kind to people from other races because I want to show them - and everyone else - that I really am not a racist. I don't see people as equals. I was taught that I have to be careful and scared for "strangers".
Watch out for drug users!
There's more crime amongst people of a lower class...
And when you're not white, we don't call you American, or Belgian, or Chinese. No, we call you African American. An immigrant. A "new" Belgian... We never accept your differences...
I was raised a racist, and I will carry that burden for the rest of my life. But being a racist doesn't mean that I have to accept it and act on it. You have good racist that try to help people from other races, and you have bad racists that hate those who are different and smoke pot once in a while.
Being different is an asset. It's nothing to be afraid about...