Czech Police charge assailant from Chanov housing estate with grievous bodily harm

This afternoon detectives charged a 32-year-old man with committing grievous bodily harm when he assaulted a police officer on Monday evening at the Chanov housing estate in Most. They have also recommended he be taken into custody. Police spokesperson Ludmila Světláková announced the charges to journalists today. The suspect faces between three and 10 years in prison if convicted. The officer who was attacked is still in hospital.

The young police officer was attacked on Monday evening while trying to verify information that a wanted person was staying at the troubled housing estate. During that search, he visited an essentially unoccupied prefabricated building there. Someone attacked him on the second floor, slashing at him with a knife. The ambulance, which the officer called himself, found him lying on the ground in front of the building. Police for the time being still do not want to directly confirm that the assailant threw the officer out of a window.

“On the first floor he was physically assaulted by the defendant, who is said to have struck him in the head on the stairs and slashed him with a knife in the area of his chest and upper limbs. The injuries the officer suffered indicate a fall from a height,” Světláková said today. Officers conducted a very lengthy search of the crime scene, arresting two males in the end, the man charged today and a minor who was released today.

Jiří Vondra, spokesperson for Regional Health, has confirmed to the Czech Press Agency that the officer is still at the hospital in Most. According to a preliminary medical report, he suffered medium-serious injuries, including bruising and a concussion.

Residents of the housing estate have condemned the attack on the officer and are now afraid people will make generalizations about it. Czech daily Mladá Fronta DNES, for example, has published the following statement made by a local Romani man: “I hope they won’t start writing that Gypsies assaulted a cop when the person who did it was a drug addict.” An unidentified young woman also added her evaluation of the situation: “Drug addicts meet up in those broken-down buildings. A normal person wouldn’t go in there. The one they caught was a toluene-sniffer, his brain has been completely eroded by it.”