Tag: Police violence

Riots in France: differences between urban violence of 2023 and 2005

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France’s national turmoil following the death of young Nahel, killed by a police officer while allegedly resisting arrest, is reminiscent of the 2005 riots that left their mark on the entire country. Two sociologists offer their analysis.

What parallels can be drawn between these two events? While the origin of the riots – the deaths of suburban youths during police checks – is similar, the social context is different. 

And communication channels have greatly evolved, allowing the unfiltered and instantaneous dissemination of information.

The riots of 2023 were more intense than in 2005

In autumn 2005, France experienced three weeks of rioting, initially concentrated in the so-called “sensitive” suburbs of the Paris region, before spreading to other parts of the country.

The anger was sparked by the deaths of two teenagers on 27 October near Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) – Zyed and Bouna – who were electrocuted in an EDF transformer substation where they had taken refuge to escape arrest.

Their deaths echoed those of two other minors a few months earlier and led to urban violence. More than 10,000 cars were set on fire, numerous buildings were damaged, dozens of police officers, gendarmes and demonstrators were injured and more than 6,000 people were arrested. The riots also left three people dead, two of them in fires.

On 27 June 2023, history repeated itself with the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old French-Algerian who was shot dead by a police officer when he allegedly refused to cooperate with the authorities.

According to the latest figures released by the Ministry of the Interior, the eight days of urban violence that followed caused as much damage and mobilised more security forces than the 2005 riots, which lasted three weeks.

Repeated scenarios

The riots of 2023 and 2005 are not the only uprisings to have taken place in France’s recent history.

Sociologist François Dubet, who has counted some forty riots since the early 1980s, said he was struck by the repetition of the same scenario: “Every time, there has been a police blunder, every time, there has been violence against public facilities, police stations, schools, town halls. Every time, it ends in looting. Each time, the elected representatives and neighbourhood associations are not listened to, and the political responses are repeated.”

Sociologist Fabien Truong agreed: “The same problems recur, i.e. very regular arrests, giving the impression that things are going to get out of hand, which happens quite regularly because it’s all chronic. Unfortunately, deaths in working-class neighbourhoods as a result of encounters with the police happen every year. This reflects a very vertical relationship with a logic of suspicion, with the police often intervening blindly.

Young people who feel “neglected

In 2005, much like in 2023, many 16 and 17-year-olds took to the streets to express their anger and resentment.

“It’s a minority of young people in the inner suburbs who, rightly or wrongly, feel they’ve reached an impasse, they’ve been let down and, deep down, they feel they have nothing left to lose.These are young people who don’t have enough adult presence around them”, explained Fabien Truong.

The problems are profound: the ghettoisation of neighbourhoods, precariousness, unemployment, the failure of the national education system, racism, discrimination and delinquency are among the symptoms most often cited.

François Dubet also stressed the emptiness surrounding young people involved in urban violence: “Behind the rioters, there is no organisation, no party, no trade union, no mosque, there is nothing. What is characteristic is the political vacuum. The mayor, who did everything he could for the social centre and the youth centre, can still talk, but he talks to a vacuum. Nobody hears him.

In 2023, social networks played an accelerated role

Social networks, which did not exist in 2005, have also played a catalytic role, as François Dubet explained: “Nahel’s murder was filmed. Every citizen was therefore able to see a policeman brandishing a revolver at the head of a boy driving a car. In 2005, nobody saw anything, everything was interpreted and discussed.

The scenes of destruction and looting broadcast on social networks create a buzz and have a snowball effect: “We can see that there are staged effects (…) What’s more, the networks have changed the way we perceive the relationship between the police and the public today”, Fabien Truong points out.

A more explosive social context in 2023

This year the social context seems more explosive than in 2005. France has just experienced several weeks of strikes and demonstrations linked to pension reforms.

The country is still marked by the Gilets Jaunesmovement against job insecurity and social injustice, two years of health restrictions linked to the COVID-19 crisis and soaringinflation, linked to the war in Ukraine, which is weighing on purchasing power.

The impact of other events abroad has also spread to the European Continent, such as the death of the African-American George Floyd, a symbol of the police violence and discrimination suffered by the black community in the United States.

In 2005, Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, used some controversial phrases to inflame the public. ” We’re going to clean up the housing estates with a Karcher”, the future president declared during a visit to La Courneuve, a suburb in the Paris region. On 25 October, shortly before the riots, Sarkozy did it again, this time addressing residents of the Argenteuil district: “You’ve had enough of this gang of scum? Then we’ll get rid of them.

Outside France, there’s an impression of widespread chaos

Like in 2005, images of the recent riots were widely broadcast around the world, giving an impression of chaos in France, where the suburbs are perceived by some foreign observers as lawless areas where crime reigns.

“The people who live in these areas are not drug dealers. Even though there is massive unemployment, most of them work, and they may be less wealthy, but they live normal lives”, said sociologist François Dubet, who also noted a form of ambivalence within this population: “The residents condemn the violence because it destroys their neighbourhood, but they also denounce police racism while demanding more police because it is no longer liveable”.

Fabien Truong also believes that urban violence in France distorts the reality of working-class neighbourhoods: “When you look at the population flow figures, you see that there is a lot of social mobility.

“And so if the neighbourhoods are becoming poorer, it’s also because families who are successful or who improve their living conditions leave these neighbourhoods”, stressed the sociologist, who also pointed out the many successes of young people.

 “There is a fringe of young people who have really found their place in French society. You only have to look at who works for the SNCF, who works for companies, who are in the French national team, who are the favourite personalities of the French, and what is the most listened to music, rap. But the other side of the coin is the impoverishment of the neighbourhoods themselves”.

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Curfews and transport cancellations as France braces for more riots

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Curfews and transport cancellations in some parts of France as tensions simmer over the police shooting of a teenager in Nanterre

France braced for another feared eruption of urban rioting on Thursday night after the deadly police shooting of a suburban 17-year-old, with tens of thousands of officers patrolling the streets and commuters rushing home before transport services closed down early for safety reasons.

Despite government appeals for calm and vows that order would be restored, smoke from cars and rubbish set ablaze was already billowing over the streets of the Paris suburb of Nanterre following a peaceful afternoon march in honour of the teen identified only by his first name, Nahel.

Peaceful march for Nahel

The police officer accused of pulling the trigger was handed a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide after prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial investigation led him to conclude ‘the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not met.’

After a morning crisis meeting following violence that injured scores of police and damaged nearly 100 public buildings, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the number of police officers would more than quadruple, from 9,000 to 40,000. In the Paris region alone, the number of officers deployed would more than double to 5,000.

Thousands of police on the streets

‘The professionals of disorder must go home,’ Darmanin said. While there’s no need yet to declare a state of emergency – a measure taken to quell weeks of rioting in 2005 – he added: ‘The state’s response will be extremely firm.’

Bus and tram services in the Paris area were shutting down before sunset as a precaution to safeguard transportation workers and passengers, a decision sure to impact thousands of travellers in the French capital and its suburbs.

‘Our transports are not targets for thugs and vandals!’ Valerie Pecresse, head of the Paris region, tweeted.

The town of Clamart, home to 54,000 people in the French capital’s southwest suburbs, said it was taking the extraordinary step of putting an overnight curfew in place from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. through to Monday.

Clamart curfew

It cited ‘the risk of new public order disturbances’ for the decision, after two nights of urban unrest. ‘Clamart is a safe and calm town, we are determined that it stay that way,’ it said.

The shooting captured on video shocked the country and stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing estates and other disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

The teenager’s family and their lawyers haven’t said the police shooting was race-related and they didn’t release his surname or details about him.

Still, his death instantly inflamed raw nerves in neighbourhoods that have welcomed generations of immigrants from France’s former colonies and elsewhere. Their France-born children frequently complain that they are subjected to police ID checks and harassment far more frequently than white people or those in more affluent neighbourhoods.

Anti-racism activists renewed their complaints about police behaviour in the shooting’s wake.

‘We have to go beyond saying that things need to calm down,’ said Dominique Sopo, head of the campaign group SOS Racisme. ‘The issue here is how do we make it so that we have a police force that, when they see Blacks and Arabs, don’t tend to shout at them, use racist terms against them and in some cases, shoot them in the head.’

Prache, the Nanterre prosecutor, said officers tried to stop Nahel because he looked so young and was driving a Mercedes with Polish licence plates in a bus lane.

He ran a red light to avoid being stopped then got stuck in traffic. Both officers involved said they drew their guns to prevent him from fleeing.

The officer who fired a single shot said he feared he and his colleague or someone else could be hit by the car, according to Prache. The officers said they felt “threatened” as the car drove off.

Two magistrates are leading the investigation, Prache said. Under French law, which differs from the American and British legal systems, magistrates often lead investigations.

Police officer placed in detention

Preliminary charges mean investigating judges have strong reason to suspect wrongdoing, but they allow time for further investigation before a decision is made on whether to send the case to trial. The police officer has been placed in provisional detention, according to the prosecutor’s office.

In a separate case, a police officer who fatally shot a 19-year-old Guinean man in western France has preliminarily been charged with voluntary homicide, the local prosecutor said Wednesday. The man was fatally shot by an officer as he allegedly tried to flee a traffic stop. The investigation is still ongoing.

Despite a beefed-up police presence Wednesday night, violence resumed after dusk with protesters shooting fireworks and hurling stones at police in Nanterre, who fired repeated volleys of tear gas.

As demonstrations spread to other towns, police and firefighters struggled to contain protesters and extinguish numerous blazes. Schools, police stations, town halls and other public buildings were damaged from Toulouse in the south to Lille in the north, with most of the damage in the Paris suburbs, according to a spokesperson for the national police.

Fire damaged the town hall in the Paris suburb of L’Ile-Saint-Denis, not far from the country’s national stadium and the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Darmanin said 170 officers had been injured in the unrest but none of the injuries was life-threatening. At least 90 public buildings were vandalised.

The number of civilians injured was not immediately released.

Scenes of violence in France’s suburbs echo 2005, when the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna led to three weeks of nationwide riots, exposing anger and resentment in neglected, crime-ridden suburban housing projects.

The two boys were electrocuted after hiding from police in a power substation in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois.

Emergency security meeting

French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency security meeting Thursday about the violence.

“These acts are totally unjustifiable,” Macron said at the beginning of the meeting, which aimed at securing hot spots and planning for the coming days “so full peace can return.”

Macron also said it was time for “remembrance and respect” as Nahel’s mother called for a silent march Thursday that drew a large crowd to Nelson Mandela Square, where he was killed.

Some marchers had “Justice for Nahel” printed on the front of their T-shirts. “The police kill” read one marcher’s placard.

‘I’m afraid of what might come next,’ said marcher Amira Taoubas, a mother of four boys, the eldest aged 11. ‘I’d like it to stop and that it never happens again. It’s just not possible to die like this, for no reason. I wouldn’t want it to happen to my own children.’

Bouquets of orange and yellow roses now mark the site of the shooting.

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How Exposure to Violence Worsens Health

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Samaria Rice’s anxiety fluctuates but seems to reliably spike around her son Tamir’s birthday and on the anniversary of the day a policeman gunned down the 12-year-old.

It’s been more than 8 years since police killed Tamir Rice as he stood outside a Cleveland, OH, community center, holding a toy gun.

When Samaria Rice arrived at the scene Nov. 22, 2014, her youngest daughter, Tajai, 14, was in a squad car and her 15-year-old son, Tavon, was in handcuffs after running to the scene. She had to choose between staying with them or going with Tamir to the hospital.

She chose the latter. Doctors declared Tamir dead the next day. Her daughter, Tasheona, then 18, and Tavon at first responded with anger and rebellion, and over time, as each struggled in their own way, Rice and her children were diagnosed with PTSD.

The family has still not fully recovered. For years after Tamir’s death, Tajai, who was inseparable from Tamir, wouldn’t eat certain snacks like cheese pizza, cereal, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because they reminded her of her brother.

The kids, all in their 20s now, have high blood pressure like their mother. Rice has flashbacks and finds herself “zoning out.”

“We’re different people now,” she says. “When the death of my son happened, my children started making bad decisions. PTSD is a direct hit, and things happen instantly.”

“It comes with a lot of depression, anxiety, crying spells, and sleepless nights. Your mind races,” she says.

It Affects Entire Communities

The damage doesn’t stop with families like the Rices. A growing body of research shows fallout from community violence, including aggressive policing, extends well beyond victims and their families. It can ripple through entire communities, taking a toll on both mental and physical health.

“Policing definitely is a health issue,” says Andrea Headley, PhD, an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Black and brown people, who tend to have more negative interactions with police, can experience “vicarious” trauma just knowing that people who look like them might be targeted, says Headley.

Communities with more active and aggressive policing often face other ills – unemployment, less investment, faltering education systems among them – and the cumulative stress has been shown to increase the risk of ailments like diabetes, she says.

Adverse childhood experiences, which include dealing with racism and seeing a relative incarcerated, are linked to higher rates of hepatitis, ischemic heart disease, liver disease, substance abuse, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, research shows. It’s hard to make a direct causal link, but scientists are trying to unpack just how these factors work together and which ones are most responsible for bad health outcomes.

The Long Road: Living With Trauma

Sirry Alang, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Health And Human Development at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education, has studied five pathways linking police brutality and health outcomes among Black people: fatal injuries; emotional and physiological responses within communities; racist public reactions; financial strain; and systemic disempowerment.

When a person sees themselves in, say, George Floyd or Eric Garner, or sees their child in Tamir Rice or Michael Brown, triggers are common, Alang says. A routine traffic stop or the mere sight of an officer causes knots in the stomach as the body releases cortisol and other hormones designed to prepare for danger, which overworks systems and causes a “weathering” effect on the body, she says. Negative police encounters can also taint a person’s view of other authorities and institutions, including health care, she says.

“If you have had a negative encounter with police, you’re less likely to get the flu shot, preventative care, find therapy when you’re stressed,” Alang says. “To you, the system is the system; the man is the man.”

Rice has experienced it all. The city at first blamed Tamir for the shooting. (The then-mayor soon apologized for this.) Rice heard people question why her son’s replica firearm was missing its bright orange safety tip, while others pointed out Tamir was large for his age, as if either could explain an officer exiting his car and opening fire on a 12-year-old inside 2 seconds, she says.

Her activism and fight for accountability (no officer was charged, but the city paid her family $6 million) have taken her away from work, as have her therapy sessions to deal with the emotional fallout. She continues to be dismayed by politicians who pay lip service but do little to address the issues, she says.

“Those are anger points and trigger points for me, to see law enforcement continue killing without accountability.”

Her three children are parents themselves now, and Rice can’t help but think they’d be further along in their dreams for life had they not lost their brother to police violence. As kids, Tavon wanted to be a carpenter or to work with cars, while Tasheona wanted to be a neonatal nurse – dreams deferred after Tavon spent some time in jail and Tasheona became a mother in her late teens.

Rice, too, struggled mightily after Tamir’s death. She and Tajai, who lost significant weight after her brother’s killing, briefly lived in a shelter before donations allowed Samaria to find them an apartment, she says.

They’re getting help and doing better now. Tasheona is about to begin studies to become a dental assistant, and Rice convinced Tavon to leave Ohio for a fresh start. He plans to attend barber school in Louisville, KY. Tajai has started eating cheese pizza and cereal again, though she hasn’t gone back to PB&J, her mother says.

Today, Rice stays busy with the Tamir Rice Foundation, fighting for reform, lifting the always-smiling youngster’s legacy, and meeting with other families who’ve lost loved ones to gun violence.

“You can lose your mind in a situation like this,” she says. “Some of these parents don’t come back after going through what we go through.” That’s why her foundation work is so close to her heart.

These types of efforts can make a real difference in the community, says Headley from Georgetown.

Yet she warns against one-size-fits-all approaches. Communities and police departments differ, as must prescriptions for reform. It may require a suite of changes such as:

  • Hiring more women and people of color as officers
  • Focusing more on known criminals than entire communities
  • Using mental health professionals rather than police where appropriate
  • Decriminalizing petty nuisances such as loitering
  • Investing in communities (for example, improving public spaces, reducing poverty, providing educational resources, creating jobs, and developing after-school programs)

“We need to take a step back and understand all the ways these different parts of the policing system contribute to the problems,” Headley says.

“There are things that we can do if we choose to do them, but the will has to be there.”

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Video of police brutally beating Tyre Nichols sparks US-wide protests

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Authorities released video footage Friday showing Tyre Nichols being beaten by five Memphis police officers who held the Black motorist down and repeatedly struck him with their fists, boots and batons as he screamed for his mother.

The video is filled with violent moments showing the officers, who are also Black, chasing and pummeling Nichols and leaving him on the pavement propped against a squad car as they fist-bump and celebrate their actions.

The footage emerged one day after the officers were charged with murder in Nichols’ death. 

The chilling images of another Black man dying at the hands of police renewed tough questions about how fatal encounters with law enforcement continue even after repeated calls for change.

Protesters gathered for mostly peaceful demonstrations in multiple cities, including Memphis, where several dozen demonstrators blocked the Interstate 55 bridge that carries traffic over the Mississippi River toward Arkansas. Lorries were backed up for a distance.

In Washington, dozens of protestors gathered in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House and near Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Other cities nationwide braced for demonstrations, but media outlets reported only scattered and nonviolent protests. Demonstrators at times blocked traffic while they chanted slogans and marched through the streets of New York City, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon.

Nichols’ relatives urged supporters to protest peacefully.

“I don’t want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because that’s not what my son stood for,” Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said Thursday. “If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully.”

Christopher Taylor was one of the protesters at the Interstate 55 bridge on Friday. He said he watched the video. The Memphis native said it was horrible that the officers appeared to be laughing as they stood around after the beating.

“I cried,” he said. “And that right there, as not only a father myself but I am also a son, my mother is still living, that could have been me.”

US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both condemned the Memphis police beating of Tyre Nichols that ended in his death.

The president said in a statement that he was “outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video” of the beating and said people who see it will be “justifiably outraged”.

But he also urged protesters to avoid any violence.

“Yet, once again, America mourns the life of a son and father brutally cut short at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve,” Harris said.

She said the video images would “open wounds that will never fully heal”.

Earlier on Friday, Biden said he spoke with Nichols’ mother earlier in the day and told her that he would be “making a case” to Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act “to get this under control.” 

The legislation, which has been stalled, is meant to tackle police misconduct and excessive force and boost federal and state accountability efforts.

‘Stop, I’m not doing anything’

The recording shows police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes while screaming profanities at him throughout the attack. 

The Nichols family legal team has likened the assault to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King.

After the first officer roughly pulls Nichols out of a car, Nichols can be heard saying, “I didn’t do anything,” as a group of officers try to wrestle him to the ground.

One officer is heard yelling, “Tase him! Tase him!”

Nichols calmly says, “OK, I’m on the ground.”

“You guys are really doing a lot right now,” Nichols says. “I’m just trying to go home.”

“Stop, I’m not doing anything,” he yells moments later.

Nichols can then be seen running as an officer fires a Taser at him. The officers then start chasing Nichols.

Other officers are called, and a search ensues before Nichols is caught at another intersection. The officers beat him with a baton and kicked and punched him.

Security camera footage shows three officers surrounding Nichols as he lies in the street, cornered between police cars, with a fourth officer nearby.

Two officers hold Nichols to the ground as he moves about, and then the third appears to kick him in the head. Nichols slumps more fully onto the pavement with all three officers surrounding him. The same officer kicks him again.

The fourth officer then walks over, draws a baton and holds it up at shoulder level as two officers hold Nichols upright as if he were sitting.

“I’m going to baton the f— out you,” one officer can be heard saying. His body camera shows him raise his baton while at least one other officer holds Nichols. The officer strikes Nichols on the back with the baton three times in a row.

The other officers then appear to hoist Nichols to his feet, with him flopping like a doll, barely able to stay upright.

An officer then punches him in the face, as the officer with the baton continues to menace him. Nichols stumbles and turns, still held up by two officers. 

The officer who punched him then walks around to Nichols’ front and punches him four more times. Then Nichols collapses.

Two officers can then be seen atop Nichols on the ground, with a third nearby, for about 40 seconds. Three more officers then run up, and one can be seen kicking Nichols on the ground.

As Nichols is slumped up against a car, not one of the officers renders aid. The body camera footage shows a first-person view of one of them reaching down and tying his shoe.

It takes more than 20 minutes after Nichols is beaten and on the pavement before any sort of medical attention is provided, even though two fire department officers arrived on the scene with medical equipment within 10 minutes.

Throughout the videos, officers make claims about Nichols’ behaviour that are not supported by the footage or that the district attorney and other officials have said did not happen. 

In one of the videos, an officer claims that during the initial traffic stop, Nichols reached for a gun before fleeing and almost had his hand on the handle, which is not shown in the video.

After Nichols is in handcuffs and leaning against a police car, several officers say that he must have been high. Later an officer says no drugs were found in his car, and another officer immediately counters that Nichols must have ditched something while he was running away.

‘Heinous, reckless and inhumane’

Authorities have not released an autopsy report, but they have said there appeared to be no justification for the traffic stop, and nothing of note was found in the car.

The video raised questions about the role and possible culpability of the other officers at the scene, in addition to the five who were charged. The footage shows a number of other officers standing around after the beating.

Memphis Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis has said other officers are under investigation for their part in the arrest. Davis described the five officers’ actions as “heinous, reckless and inhumane.”

During the traffic stop, the video shows the officers were “already ramped up, at about a 10,” she said. The officers were “aggressive, loud, using profane language and probably scared Mr. Nichols from the very beginning.”

“Police are trained to understand that people might flee just because they are scared,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina who studies use of force.

Court records showed that all five former officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — were taken into custody.

The officers each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Four of the five officers had posted bond and been released from custody by Friday morning, according to court and jail records.

Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law.

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