A press release issued yesterday by the General Inspectorate of Security Forces (GIBS) has announced that police did not, in their view, commit a crime or any other wrongdoing during their operation in Teplice, Czech Republic last June, after which a Romani man died. GIBS has decided that it has not been proved that the death of the man was related to the police intervention and the cause of his death was, according to an expert opinion, heart failure during intoxication with methamphetamine.
"The investigation has revealed that the police intervention against the man was carried out in a standard way, using coercive measures that were lawful, the use of which did not have a proven causal link to the subsequent death," said GIBS spokesperson Ivana Nguyenová. Mr Stanislav Tomáš was forcibly handcuffed by police officers on 19 June 2021 during his arrest in Teplice and later died.
Bystander video footage of the arrest was published by the Romea.cz news server and shared on social media, and the police intervention was widely criticized by Czech and international activists and organizations who protested it throughout Europe. The video footage shows a police officer kneeling on Mr Tomáš's neck in a manner reminiscent of the police intervention during which George Floyd, a Black man, was killed in the USA in May 2020.
