Ombudsman Stanislav Křeček.
Brno – During the intervention against a schoolboy in Borovany in Českobudějovick at last year's meeting of the chairman of the ANO movement Andrej Babiš, the police could have handled the situation more professionally, according to ombudsman Stanislav Křeček. In addition, he found misconduct by the police officers in the calls for proof of identity. This follows from the report of the investigation of the public defender of rights in the case, published on his website. The ombudsman stopped the investigation because he said the police had taken remedial measures. Last summer, non-uniformed policemen knocked down a schoolboy who wanted to take Babiš's loudspeaker. The police assessed the incident as a disciplinary offence.
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The public defender of rights investigated the matter on his own initiative. According to him, the police officers were found guilty in the disciplinary proceedings of groping the person in question and addressing him with the words “Show your ID card, show it” or “Do you have a ID card or not?” and “Show me your ID, I tell you! Or should we call the uniformed police to take you away for identification?” The ombudsman considers the policemen's words about whether the person in question is “a dude” and “whether he can read” to be a violation of the Police Act. “They are clearly not in accordance with the rules of politeness and do not care about the honor and seriousness of the person in question – even if the person has previously committed an act that fulfills the signs of an offence,” said Křeček.
He also found doubts on the part of the police officers when they were asked to prove their identity. He stated that before using coercive means, the police officers did not use appropriate calls with the words “In the name of the law!”. “If the police wanted to force identification, they had the time and space to meet their legal obligations to use the summons,” the ombudsman said. According to him, this would give the person in question one last chance to voluntarily prove their identity, and coercive means would thus only be used as a last resort. The ombudsman did not find any wrongdoing in the procedure of the policemen when handcuffing the person in question.
“In addition to the above, I state that the police officers, whose interest was to remain undercover, could have handled the whole situation more professionally. I would consider it more appropriate if they asked the uniformed police for cooperation,” the ombudsman said. They could then just follow the person in question without revealing their affiliation to the police. And only intervene if there is a risk that the person concerned will want to leave Borovan. “However, if they have already decided to identify him themselves, they should have properly asked him to prove his identity, including the reason why they are doing so,” said Křeček. They could also, if they identified the person in question, work with the information that it was a child. And, according to the ombudsman, they could also start communicating decently with the woman who gave them this information and who, as it later turned out, was his mother,” the ombudsman said.
The police evaluated the intervention in Borovany as a disciplinary offense, from the disciplinary but she waived the punishment, “because the discussion of the offense alone is sufficient to correct the police officers. The fact that the police officers were exposed to considerable media pressure, which also affected their private lives, was also taken into account,” police spokesman Jiří Matzner said at the time. The police intervention and the use of coercive measures against the schoolboy in Borovany was also assessed by the General Inspection of the Security Forces (GIBS). According to her, the police intervention was justified, reasonable and in accordance with the law in the given situation.
The intervention provoked public criticism. The police said that the young man looked older and at first glance did not suffer from any health problems. Only after the intervention, the mother the boy stated that he is 15 years old and suffers from an autism spectrum disorder.
