Court of Appeal confirms police officer will stand trial before the criminal court

A trial is now certain in the case of Jérôme Rodrigues, who lost an eye. By rejecting the appeal lodged by the officer involved, the Paris Court of Appeal has confirmed that he will stand trial before a criminal court.

The judges found there was “sufficient evidence” against police officer Brice C., suspected of having “intentionally committed violence” with “a sting-ball grenade” against Jérôme Rodrigues, causing “the permanent loss of the use of his right eye”. The Court of Appeal thus upheld the order issued on 24 January 2025 by the investigating judges in charge of the case.

Brice C. will therefore be tried by a departmental criminal court, more than seven years after the events. In January 2019, during Act IX of the Yellow Vests protests, this officer from a CSI police intervention unit was on Place de la Bastille, where clashes had broken out. In the centre of the square, near the July Column, stood Jérôme Rodrigues, among a group of peaceful protesters. He was live-streaming the events when several police officers – including Brice C. – charged towards him, throwing a sting-ball grenade and firing a rubber projectile from an LBD 40 launcher at the group he was standing in.

In its investigation published in June 2023, Index published for the first time the CCTV and police body-camera footage. It shows that Jérôme Rodrigues was struck in the eye by one of the rubber pellets from the grenade thrown by Brice C. Index’s 3D reconstruction of the scene also established that the grenade had been lobbed in a high arc, rather than rolled along the ground as regulations require.

Brice C. claimed self-defence, arguing that throwing the grenade was justified by “projectiles” allegedly thrown at the police. Index had disproved this claim in the second part of its investigation. In their order sending him to trial, the investigating judges also concluded that “the group Jérôme Rodrigues was moving with was not violent”.