Thief snatched chains from seniors in Brno, faces up to ten years in prison
A 33-year-old man has been charged with four muggings of elderly women in central Brno. The total damage reached nearly 60,000 crowns.
Series of robberies in central Brno: man targeted older women and snatched their gold jewellery
Police.gov.cz has reported that detectives from the first department of Brno City Police Headquarters have charged a 33-year-old man with four cases of snatching gold chains. He primarily targeted seniors around seventy years of age in the city centre. The accused is currently serving a sentence for deprivation of liberty for other property-related criminal activity.
The attacks occurred even in the presence of other people on the street. The entire incident happened so quickly that many passersby either noticed nothing or failed to respond to calls for help.
One case occurred in April of this year on Dorných Street. A woman was walking from the main railway station when a man near public transport stops grabbed her chain and pulled it. The chain itself remained around the victim's neck, but the pendant was taken by the attacker. Although the woman called for help, the man fled the scene.
A month later, he allegedly targeted another woman who had arrived by train and was walking along Masaryk Street. He approached her from the front and snatched the jewellery from her neck. The victim felt scratched and began screaming. The attacker fled again, this time with the pendant worth several thousand crowns. A few days later, he allegedly snatched a gold chain from another senior woman from behind and disappeared.
The attack did not only occur on the street. In one case, a woman sitting in the rear of a tram lost her chain. The man waited for a stop on Křenová Street, and as soon as the doors opened, he snatched the jewellery from her neck and ran out via the rear exit.
Behind the identification of the perpetrator lay systematic work by detectives — evaluation of camera footage, witness interviews and operative investigative activities. The gathered evidence led to charges of theft and an aggravated felony of robbery. The total damage across the four cases reached nearly sixty thousand crowns.
The accused now faces an extended stay behind bars. For robbery, the law sets a basic prison sentence of two to ten years deprivation of liberty.
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)