Attacks on Police More Frequent and Brutal

Attacks on police and injury to police officials are growing. In response to the last two cases the syndicate made an announcement.

Because of the more frequent attacks on police officers lately, the Croatian Police Trade Union issued a public statement.

-The Croatian Police Trade Union most strongly condemns the attacks on police officials which are taking place whilst they are doing their everyday duties. The two most drastic cases were the attack of a murderer released for the weekend, and the injury of a police officer by a mentally ill person – which was stated in the announcement.

These two cases are referring to events in Osijek, when three days ago a prisoner on a free weekend took pistol from a police officer and fired because he was trying to check his ID. The injury of a police officer happened yesterday in Sesvete when a mentally disturbed man stabbed the officer with a knife during intervention.

The Croatian Police Trade Union in the statement, which was signed by president Dubravko Jagic, blamed the other institutions as well.

They appealed to the prison system to, in the future whilst deciding which prisoners will be granted a free weekend, weigh the severity of the crime for which that person was jailed.

-We feel that it is not the same to grant a petty thief a free weekend who will at worst mug somebody, or a convicted murderer or rapist who obviously does show any sign of remorse for what they have done – which was stated in the announcement.

In the case of the police intervention of calming down a mentally ill person, the trade union blamse the ambulance personnel who took hours to get to the scene, whilst the police showed up in minutes.

In general, in the last two years attacks on police officers are up. Last year there were 313 attacks whilst in 2005 there were 293 attacks.

There are more and more injured police officers. In 2006 there were 212 injuries to officers, whilst a year earlier there were 199, two of which died on duty.