Brutal assailant attacks Romani woman in front of her children, Czech Police can't get their stories straight
A brutal assailant attacked Lucie Badyová in front of her seven-year-old son and three-year-old daughter last Thursday afternoon on Kapitána Jaroše Street in the Czech town of Kadaň. He punched her, knocking her to the ground and continued his brutal assault as she was prone.
The attacker did not stop until a car drove past. He then fled the scene of his crime. “I went to the after-school club with my little daughter to pick up my son. We went shopping and then we were heading to the foundation nearby, and that man was already ahead me of the street as we were walking there. I did not notice him at all, we were just walking behind him,” Badyová described the incident to news server Romea.cz.
The man stopped near the foundation entrance. “I held my children by their hands and attempted to walk around him, but I didn’t manage to, because when he turned around, he punched me in the face. I asked him: ‘What are you doing?’ but he did not say one word,” she said.
“He sprang at me, punched me again, and I fell to the ground. He came over and began kicking me. That wasn’t enough for him, so he knelt down and punched me in the face again, always on the same side, until some car drove up and stopped and when he saw that, he ran away. If that car hadn’t driven up, nobody would have come to my aid and I would have just died there,” she described the horrifying moments, adding that she could see the man was visibly enjoying committing the violence.
The victim said she had never seen the assailant before. After the attack she called the police and went to the doctor.
News server Romea.cz attempted to ask police several questions about the case, including whether a racist motivation might have played a role since the woman assaulted is Romani. Police refused to answer our questions, referring to Act No 101/2000, Coll., on the protection of personal data, and referred us to the media section of their website, where they had posted a brief report about the case.
For the commercial TV Prima station, however, the police were happy to give a statement. They also provided Prima with video footage of the attack that had been taken by the approaching vehicle, which was equipped with such a camera.
“It was just a physical assault, he didn’t take anything from her,” an unidentified detective says in the Prima reportage. He also addressed whether more such attacks had happened that day.
“There was just one attack on a woman, and we are dedicating all our resources to solving it,” the detective says. That contradicts the police force’s own website, which reports that the same man assaulted yet another woman several minutes later on that same street.
The officers in the reportage also say the assailant was a 25-year-old foreign national whom they have arrested and that he has been told he is suspected of the crimes of rioting and attempted battery. The case will now be reviewed by the court.
