Drowning of Steve Maia Caniço: digital reconstruction

In the weeks after he went missing on the night of 22 June 2019, the Steve Maia Caniço case became a national story: the words “Où est Steve ?” [“Where is Steve?”] appeared on walls across France. His body was found in the Loire on 29 July 2019. His death raised many questions about the public order tactics used that night and about whether the police bore any responsibility.

In November 2021, the investigating judge in charge of the case appointed Index to “produce a digital reconstruction video” giving an overall picture of the incident. The case file handed to Index comprised more than 4,600 procedural documents, 130 videos, and 33 hours of radio communications and emergency calls. Index cross-referenced and synchronised all of these sources – CCTV footage, videos filmed by witnesses, radio communications, geolocation data, and witness statements – in a three-dimensional reconstruction of the Quai Wilson and of the events of the night of 21 to 22 June 2019.

That night, during the Fête de la Musique, ten sound systems were set up along the quay, on the banks of the Loire. Over nearly 250 metres, its eastern section opened directly onto the river, with no protective barrier – the water lying five to eight metres below. Between 4 am and 5 am, a police operation led by police commissioner Grégoire Chassaing set out to stop the music. It got out of hand.

At the heart of Index’s analysis is the spread of the tear gas. By cross-referencing CCTV footage, witness videos, and meteorological data, Index reconstructed the formation and movement of the gas clouds on the quay. Blown by the wind towards the Loire, their effects reached well beyond the area of direct exposure: several people more than a hundred metres away said they were affected, and a team of paramedics stationed more than 130 metres from the scene had to pull back in a hurry, unable to see or breathe.

Forensic examination of Steve Maia Caniço’s phone puts his fall into the Loire at 4:33:14 am. At that precise moment, the gas cloud covered the quay and a line of police officers was advancing some fifteen metres from the edge. Four other people fell into the water at the same time: all put their fall down to the effects of the gas – disorientation and loss of visibility.

Brought together in the reconstruction, these data lead Index to one conclusion: it is highly probable that Steve Maia Caniço was affected by tear gas when he fell. And a link between these falls – his included – and the police advance along the quay cannot be ruled out.

Seven months after his death, on the instructions of the prefecture, the entire length of the Quai Wilson – which is State property – was fenced off.