Prague woman threatened to kill police officer: suspended sentence

A woman from Prague's Barrandov district who threatened to kill a police officer in January 2024 and slammed the door in her face has received a 10-month suspended sentence with a probation period of one and a half years. The Constitutional Court of Czechia recently rejected her appeal and upheld the verdict.

A call over shouting in a flat

It all happened in mid-January 2024. Around 10 p.m., a patrol arrived in Barrandov: loud shouting and an argument could be heard coming from one of the flats. The husband cooperated with the officers, but his wife grew even angrier at the sight of them.

The woman was asked several times to show her ID and was warned that if she refused to cooperate, her freedom would be restricted and she would be taken in to establish her identity. In response, she told the officer: “If you touch me, I will kill you, madam, I'm telling you,” the prosecutor's office reports.

The verdict and compensation for damage

The court found the woman guilty of threatening a public official and of damaging another person's property: during the confrontation she damaged several of her neighbours' doors. She was sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for one and a half years. She was also ordered to pay the housing cooperative 60,000 crowns in compensation for the damage.

Why the Constitutional Court turned her down

The woman disagreed with the verdict and turned to the Constitutional Court. She claimed that the justice system had violated her rights and that the officer had allegedly entered her flat unlawfully.

The panel, chaired by rapporteur judge Pavel Šámal, found no grounds to intervene. According to the ruling, which the court published in recent days, the officers had lawful grounds to demand identification. They were let in at the door by the woman's husband, who also explained to his wife that the officers were polite and only wanted to look at her ID. Instead, she tried to slam the door in the patrol's faces.

“The officer had to prevent the door from being closed, and she did so in the gentlest possible way: she stood with one foot in the doorway, without stepping further into the home and without escalating the intrusion. There was clearly no question of a violent or unlawful entry into the dwelling by the officer,” Šámal wrote. In his assessment, the officer's position in the doorway was proportionate, minimal and necessary for exercising the police's lawful right to speak to a person and demand identification.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz