Weeklong protests erupted in France after a 22-year-old Black man charged that police officers beat and sodomized him during an arrest Feb 2.
Simply identified as Theo, the youth worker was on his way to meet some friends when cops doing I.D. checks stopped him. According to CNN, the officers reportedly forced Theo to the ground, beat him and then one sodomized him with an expandable baton.
“I saw one of them take his baton and stick it into my bum,” Theo told France’s BFM television channel. “As soon as he did that, I fell on my belly. I felt weak. It was as if my body had given up on me.”