An artist-founded audio investigative group has shared an analyzed recording of Nahel M.’s death at the hands of a police officer last month.
The 17-year-old victim was shot and killed after being arrested by police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on June 27. Violent demonstrations and riots broke out across France in the following days.
Accounts of what happened during the traffic stop differ. The public prosecutor of Nanterre maintained that the police officer had fired after Nahel, the driver, had tried to flee, even knocking down the police. But a passenger in the car maintained that Nahel only released his foot on the car’s brake after he was hit by the officer, who fired as the vehicle was rolling.
According to IGPN, the French national police, one of the officers shouted: “Cut ! hands behind head,” Or “Cut! Hands behind head.
But the audio released late last week by Scope, an “investigative agency that employs state-of-the-art audio analysis techniques” founded by Turner Prize-winning artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, appears to contradict the IGPN account. The recording, taken from the video of a witness, could even indicate an intention to kill, according to the group.
“There has been a lot of speculation about what was said by the police before they shot Nahel at point-blank range,” Abu Hamdan wrote in a statement. Instagram post. “This video is an effort to make available an enhanced audio signal of the event and increase the resolution of these proceedings.”
Earshot’s analysis of the moments leading up to Nahel’s death revealed two audible sentences, both uttered by the same officer: “Open, open(“Open, open”) and “Pushes you(“Bouge”). Abu Hamdan pointed out that the words were spoken in informal French, which is unconventional for police interactions.
“But ‘Open, open‘ could be directed to Nahel (asking him to open his car door), ‘Pushes you‘(‘move’) doesn’t make sense in the context of a gun being pointed at him and the police leaning on his car,” the artist continued. “An alternative thesis might be that the ‘Pushes you‘ is the shooter’s address to his colleague, ordering him to move out of the way of the incoming shot.
If true, Abu Hamdan said, “it would indicate that the killing was predetermined.”
INDEX, a French investigative NGO that conducts audio research in partnership with Earshot, wrote in a statement on its website say that “the analysis is in progress and does not, in our opinion, allow us to formally comment on the content of the oral exchanges that took place in the moments preceding the shooting. (INDEX looks like a “standalone extensionfrom Forensic Architecture, where Abu Hamdan is also a researcher.)
Despite the apparent lack of conclusive evidence, the NGO audio was picked up by numerous media outlets, fueling a fiery public debate about the circumstances of Nahel’s death and the broader issue of police brutality in France.
According to a July 3 tweet from INDEX, the television channel Info France 2 broadcast the audio analysis of the groups, but with subtitles from the IGPN transcription. “You’re making him say the OPPOSITE of our analysis,” INDEX wrote in the post, which has been viewed more than 1.6 million times. The next day, Info France 2 apologized for its “improper use” sound.
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