The Debrecen District Court sentenced a man to three years in prison at a remote hearing because he attacked police officers with a wallpaper cutter, a spokesman for the Debrecen Tribunal said.
Dénes Dobó stated that the court of first instance found the accused guilty of a crime of armed violence against an official.
According to the facts, on 21 August 2019, at noon, the man illegally entered a site in Debrecen and took a wallpaper-cutting knife with him in one of the workshops.
One of the police officers who had been challenged in the meantime called on the then 18-year-old boy to identify himself.
The young man ran away, then turned to face the police officers chasing them and threatening them with a wallpaper-cutter knife with an extended blade.
The policeman and his companion repeatedly called on the boy to put down the knife, but he attacked them.
Police first tried to curb the attacker with tear gas and then warned that they would use a gun.
Then one of them fired into the air, but since that didn’t work either, he fired a targeted shot that hit the boy’s elbow. Despite the shot, the defendant continued to attack, only to be stopped by another shot.
The judge assessed as an aggravating circumstance that the accused had been previously convicted and had committed the offense at the time of his temporary dismissal in a correctional facility. He took into account as a mitigating circumstance that the boy was also injured and had limited ability to set off when the crime was committed, the spokesman explained.
The decision is not final, the accused and his counsel appealed against it.
Debrecen General Court
