A 33-year-old man fell asleep at the tram stop at Hlavní nádraží in Brno on Wednesday night. The unfortunate sleeper was robbed twice within a few minutes; cameras captured everything, and the police were able to identify and charge four suspects. Another similar crime occurred on Thursday night on Mendlovo náměstí. Photo / Video: MP Brno.
Brno, Jul 27 (BD) – As the video recording shows, the dozing victim was approached by a group of four persons. When the city police surveillance center noticed the group, they focused the camera system on them. At first the surveilling officers saw a man in his forties sit down beside the sleeping man, pull a cell phone out of the man’s shorts’ pocket and leave for the Benešova Street. The camera attendants followed the suspect’s route and caught him taking the case off the stolen phone and throwing it away.
At that moment, however, a police patrol was already heading toward him. They stopped him and discovered an allegedly stolen phone. “The man confessed to the theft and confirmed that he had discarded his cover by throwing it into a nearby garbage where one of the officers found it,” said Brno City Police spokesperson Tereza Kadrnožková.
In the meantime, the surveillance center kept an eye on the sleeping man and shortly after the first incident reported another theft. The three young men from the original group decided to search the sleeping man’s backpack.
Hidden behind his friend’s back, an 18-year-old man unzipped the backpack, pulled out a wallet and walked away. He didn’t not get far. Warned by the surveillance center, the nearby city police patrol blocked the road, awaiting the three suspects. “The man admitted after a while that he had searched the alcohol-weary man and did not leave with empty hands,” Kadrnožková said.
Meanwhile, the patrolling officer finally woke up the man and asked him to check his personal belongings. The 33-year-old has found neither his cellphone nor his wallet. “The police reassured him that they had found his property, and all four suspects were handed over to the national police,” Kadrnožková added.
Soon after, the national police discovered that the eighteen-year-old suspect misrepresented his identity; law enforcement officers had been conducting a nationwide search for this individual because he had failed to show up to the prison to start his sentence.
A similar case occurred on Thursday, July 25. An 18-year-old woman robbed a sleeping man at the tram stop at Mendlovo náměstí. At first the suspected woman studied him from afar, walked around, and after a while sat down beside him. She looked around her several more times, and then began searching the sleeping man’s bag. She pulled out several objects from the bag and proceeded to put them under her clothes. When she was ready to leave, she was stopped by a city police car patrol.
“The witness, who reported the crime by dialing 156, made a substantial contribution to the police officers’ rapid intervention. The same woman suspect had been detained by law enforcement officers for violating the law several times in recent weeks; she was handed over to the state police,” as the Brno City Police spokesperson Jakub Ghanem specified.
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