Just before climbing aboard an afternoon Air India flight bound for New York last month, 63-year-old musician Valery Ponomarev refused to be parted from his instrument, breaking his arm in the ensuing tussle.
PARIS: Border Police 1, American jazz musician 0, was the score announced on Wednesday by a French police official, describing a tussle over a vintage trumpet at the Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris.
Just before climbing aboard an afternoon Air India flight bound for New York last month, 63-year-old musician Valery Ponomarev refused to be parted from his instrument, breaking his arm in the ensuing tussle.
The clash began when French security agents demanded the trumpet be put in cargo seconds before Ponomarev was to board the flight, an official said, confirming a story first reported by the Paris-based International Herald Tribune.
The newspaper described Ponomarev as a Russian American who once played with Art Blakey's "Jazz Messangers". The prized instrument in the dispute was a 1961 Connstellation trumpet.
Ponomarev was vehement in defending the trumpet, said deputy director for border police Parice Bonhaume. When four agents tried to reason with him, the jazz player hit one. The three others reportedly yanked Ponomarev's arm behind his back, breaking it.
The American was then placed in police custody, but later treated at airport medical services and finally hospitalized nearby for a neck fracture.
"There's no reason to look for police responsibility in this affair," Bonhaume said. "Police used normal procedures to immobilize an individual."
Ponomarev did not register a complaint against the police, nor did the prosecutor find grounds to launch judicial or administrative procedures, he said.
"For us, the affair is filed," Bonhaume said.
But in an interview with the International Herald Tribune, Ponomarev appeared unapologetic. "If you've ever played a musical instrument, then you should know how strong the bond is between the musician and the instrument," he told the newspaper.
"You wouldn't give your baby away to anybody and so you wouldn't give away your horn."
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