Police goes to the “Bronx of Brno” nearly every day. The police inspection is convinced that three Brno police officers at the beginning of January killed a Vietnamese man named Hoang Son Lama. The colleagues of the accused police officers have set up a special account, where they are collecting money to pay for a lawyer for the accused. The most recent evidence suggests that it is highly likely that the accused party is guilty.
The police officers that make up the 150 members of the emergency escort division are completely convinced that the three officers, currently removed from the team, are innocent. This week they have even set up a bank account and are depositing money there.
Money from all departments
“This money is meant for the lawyers for our three colleagues,” Zdeněk Hanus, head of the police division, told Týden.cz. All Brno police divisions now know about the collection to help the three police officers. “Members of other divisions are also sending money,” added Hanus.
The three officers were part of Brno’s emergency escort division for at least eight years. Now they are the key suspects in an investigation that the public prosecutor is dealing with. The prosecutor has not decided yet whether to send the three men to court. “There is no new evidence,” said Hynek Olma, spokesman for the South Moravian prosecutors.
Was the incident recorded?
One of the officers is accused of breaking Hoang Son Lam’s ribs and rupturing his spleen during the police action. The other two are accused of standing by and watching this without offering the man any help. The police was summoned into the apartment of Hoang Son Lam, situated in a part of town known as “the Bronx of Brno”, on 4 January by a neighbour complaining about noise and the presence of drugs in the building. The Vietnamese man lost consciousness after several hours in the police cell. He died on the way to the hospital.
According to unofficial information from sources involved in the investigation available to Týden.cz, the situation is starting to look grim for the trio of accused men. The medical report strongly suggests they might be guilty (the injuries seem to support the testimony of the witnesses to the alleged beating). And not only that. “The police report also contains information that the police officers recorded the incident on a mobile phone,” said one of the lawyers involved in the case.
