From the evening of November 21, 2020, the three police officers filed a complaint for rebellion and violence against a person vested with public authority. That investigation was dropped. In their report, they claim that Michel Zecler struck them numerous times and tried to seize one of their weapons.
In that vestibule, in four minutes, the producer receives nearly thirty blows, from fists, feet and a baton. The beating continues in the street, where he is struck again numerous times. What follows takes place inside his recording studio.
In the studio basement at the time was a group of nine young men. After hearing the producer call for help, they came back upstairs to try to intervene. Five of them have joined the case as civil parties; some will be heard at the trial.
Footage of the scene, revealed five days later by the media outlet Loopsider, had caused shock all the way to the highest levels of the State. It contradicts the account of the three officers.
Three police officers are being tried starting Monday, November 9, before the Paris criminal court for the beating, on November 21, 2020, of music producer Michel Zecler in his Paris studio. Six years after the events, they face up to fifteen years' imprisonment and a fine of 225,000 euros.
One of them threw an MP7 tear-gas grenade, for which he is being referred to a correctional court.
Three weeks before the hearing opened, Michel Zecler shared his apprehension with a handful of media outlets, including franceinfo, at a press briefing in Paris. A Black man from Martinique, now 47 years old, he said he had the feeling of"going back to the beginning of the case.".
According to the latter, Michel Zecler refuses the identity check and enters the vestibule. In their report, which franceinfo was able to consult at the time, they write:"As we try to intercept him, he forcibly drags us into the building.".