Czech Police release new video footage of what preceded police intervention against Romani man who died thereafter
The Czech Police have published to their Twitter account new video footage from what happened on Saturday in Teplice. The video shows what happened prior to the police arriving at the scene and intervening, after which the man against whom they intervened died in an ambulance called to the scene.
The footage shows the Romani man lying on the ground, then getting up and running at another man in shorts. The man in the shorts dodges him, and the Romani man then runs up to a white car and pounds on it with his fists more than once, at which point the video ends.
Zde můžete vidět, co předcházelo zákroku policie, která přijela na oznámení občanů. pic.twitter.com/lU7wcTVftx
— Policie ČR (@PolicieCZ) June 21, 2021
In a subsequent tweet, the police commented on the comparisons being drawn between this case and the death of George Floyd. “This is no ‘Czech Floyd’. This was an intervention against a multiple recidivist who, under the influence of narcotic and psychotropic substances, was demolishing a car and who paid no attention to the officers’ instructions – the intervention was lawful and unrelated to his death. That has been confirmed by court autopsy,” the Czech Police tweeted, reiterating the preliminary results of the autopsy.
The man died in an ambulance called to the scene after the police intervention. Amateur video of that intervention was posted to social media.
The footage of the intervention has been shared en masse by Romani people comparing it to the intervention against George Floyd in the USA, mainly because it shows police kneeling on the Romani man’s neck. “This is the height of brutality,” posted Michal Miko, director of the RomanoNet organization, about the video.
Michal Mižigár, a Romani student of history and Romani Studies who won the Aspen Central Europe Leadership Award in 2019 from the Aspen Institute Central Europe, commented that the footage shows “The Romani Floyd today in Teplice!” Recalling the attack on Romani children at a summer camp run by the Romani musician Ida Kelarová and the death of a Romani man in police custody inside a pizzeria in Žatec, he added: “I feel genuinely powerless and sad. This is not the first case.”
