Police in the Slovak capital had a busy night on early Thursday, August 16, giving chase after drunk drivers who did not stop despite warning gunshots, the TASR newswire learned from Bratislava Regional Police Headquarters spokesperson Petra Hrášková.
First, the police patrol wanted to inspect the driver of a Volkswagen Polo with Austrian licence plates on a road near Senec (Bratislava region). After the driver pulled over, he claimed to have put his documents in the trunk. When the policemen stepped away from his car in order to let him retrieve them, he took off with his side-door open and turned off the car lights. As the 42-year-old man endangered other cars on the road with his reckless driving, reinforcements were dispatched to the scene.
The driver ignored two warning gunshots fired into the air. He continued driving even after shots hit his rear wheels. On the D1 highway, he attempted to force the police car off the road and crashed, tipping over and slamming into the barricades. While passengers in his car had to be rushed to the hospital, the driver himself suffered only minor head injuries. Even after the crash, he refused to leave the car, so police had to use force. Drunk, the man claimed that he attempted to flee because he was banned from taking up residence in Slovakia. He faces charges of endangering public under the influence of alcohol and assaulting a public official.
A similar case took place in the wee hours of Thursday morning, when police saw a Škoda Favorit zig-zagging from one shoulder of the road to the other with its tail-lights off. A police signal to stop prompted the driver to accelerate, however, while attempting to force the police car off the road. The 26-year-old driver failed to react to two warning gunshots, in addition to shots that hit the undercarriage of his car. Only after his vehicle malfunctioned did the man pull over. In a similar manner, police had to use force to extract him from the vehicle. The man was drunk and had been banned from driving a motor vehicle. He, too, has been charged with endangering public under the influence and driving while under a ban.
(Source: TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
