Czech human rights activist: Police officer who caused the death of a non-Romani drug user has been held accountable, unlike the officer in the case of the Romani man Stanislav Tomáš

According to activist Miroslav Brož, the conviction of the officer in the case of the death of a non-Romani man, and the failure to even charge the officers who restrained Mr. Tomáš, shows that there is systemic racism in the Czech Republic. The court has found the defendant in the case from Uherský Brod guilty of negligent homicide.

“He was sentenced to three years in prison, conditionally suspended for four years,” said Michal Tománek, spokesperson for the court in Uherské Hradiště. The convict is forbidden to work for the police or any other security units in the Czech Republic for five years and will also not be allowed to work as a local police officer.

The verdict was handed down on 1 July and has yet to take effect. The prosecutor is still deciding whether to appeal for stricter sentencing.

“The defense appealed all points of the verdict on the spot. The defendant understandably joined the appeal,” said Tománek.

Non-Romani teenager on drugs jumped into the Olšava River, police officer suffocated him to death by kneeling on him

Police were called by members of the public to restrain the 17-year-old on 12 May 2022 when he was on Nivnická Street in Uherský Brod. According to news server Novinky.cz, calls were made after he jumped off of a bridge into the Olšava, where there was not even 30 cm. of water, and then jumped onto a car.

“The most active police officer lay down on the drugged youth and kneeled on him after handcuffing him, during which the youth suffocated,” Novinky.cz reports. The defendant told the court he had just used his knee to hold the youth in place and did not put any weight on him.

According to the indictment, the police officer, who was 56 at the time of the crime, did not conform to the guidelines on the use of force and did not do his duty. “His actions caused the victim long-lasting suffocation and hypoxic damage to the brain together with hypoxic cardiac arrest as a result of the significant restriction of his range of motion, including the impossibility of breathing movement, leading to the death of the victim through suffocation, despite making an attempt at resuscitation,” Hynek Olma, a spokesperson for the Brno Regional Prosecutor, previously said.

The case of Stanislav Tomáš never even made it to criminal court

According to human rights activist Miroslav Brož, this case is quite similar to the case of the death of Romani community member Stanislav Tomáš. He was arrested by police officers on 19 June 2021 who subsequently kneeled on his legs and on his neck for several minutes.

The death of Mr. Tomáš was filmed by bystanders and sparked international outrage and protests. No criminal charges were ever brought against the officers involved, however.

According to the police, the cause of the death of Mr. Tomáš was drug intoxication, not the police restraint. A civil case in this matter is currently being handled by the European Court of Human Rights.

“This case seems very, very similar to that of Stanislav Tomáš, in our view. The main difference is in the color of the deceased’s skin. When this youth with light skin died in the process of being restrained by police, politicians did not take to social media to thank the police for their tragic intervention against him, as happened in the case of Stanislav Tomáš,” said Miroslav Brož, who is assisting Mr. Tomáš’s sister with her lawsuit against the Czech state.

Brož was referring to the statement made by then-Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, who also chaired the Czech Government Council on Romani Minority Affairs at the time, and who stood up for the police officers in Teplice just three days after the death of Mr. Tomáš and thanked them for their intervention against him. “If somebody destroys a car, is aggressive, and even bites a police officer, he cannot expect to be handled with kid gloves. The autopsy clearly proved he did not die as a result of the police restraint. It is sad, but a normal, decent person would have a hard time getting into such a situation. I thank the police officers in Teplice for their work, they did not have an easy time of it,” Babiš said at the time.

Then-Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamáček also stood up for the police at the time. “We believe the verdict in this case clearly shows the degree to which the Czech Republic is just dripping with systemic and structural racism, that the Czech authorities proceed differently depending on whether a case concerns a Romani victim or a non-Romani one,” human rights activist Miroslav Brož told Romea.cz.