• 14/06/2022
• By wizewebsite
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Nineties on a crime scene? Like the ones on TV, says the police chief<

"I also see a lot of positive things: democratic changes - and new methods and technology have also appeared in our industry," he added to Deník, looking back three decades. He mentioned, for example, the first computers (he himself borrowed the first one from the house of pioneers when the children were on vacation; the next one was a TNS from JZD Slušovice, on which he had already created a file index in the T602 text editor at the time, and then friends who knew how to program helped him work with databases) or VHS video. "Various dubious films arrived here with him, when the art can be doubted, but we started using recordings of interrogations, crime scene inspections or reconstructions," he recalls.

Poet, singer and journalist Lukáš Trejbal played a sound engineer in the 1990s. This later paid off, for example, in the form of finding the perpetrator who stabbed a woman and her two daughters in Klučov in the Kolín region on April 30, 1990. Recidivist Jaroslav Gančarčík, who left prison on the basis of a presidential amnesty four years before the rampage in Klučov, was only revealed as the murderer in 2003 (and subsequently received a 25-year sentence). DNA samples helped to catch him when his profile was later entered into the register in connection with another criminal activity: a series of rapes in Brno.

You already worked for the police in the nineties. What did you do then? I started in Prague, where I worked until 1999; then I went to Central Bohemia. Originally, the police even had one joint administration for the capital and its surroundings. I was in Prague 1 until 1993, from 1993 I worked in the investigation department of the 1st department - i.e. murders - together with Josef Mareš, among others; after 1995, I joined Praha 5 and followed the path of management functions. From 1997 I became deputy of the regional office of investigation, still in Prague - and in 1999 I joined the management of Central Bohemia.

How does the series match up with your memories? It reminds a lot of how it really was; also thanks to the fact that the real names of the perpetrators and victims are used. I remember a lot of things that I had already forgotten. In the years 1993 and 1994, I directly participated in the investigation of some of those well-known cases, either during the trip or as part of cooperation in the department. I was, for example, at the scene of the shooting of businessman Ivan Jonák in front of Discoland Sylvie, which was recalled in the second part of the series. But certainly not all the deeds were related to the pseudo-business environment. Murders arising from personal disputes were also dealt with - similar to today.

Do you know if you yourself will also appear as a character in the series? I think not. It is an artistic rendering and certainly the entire investigator cannot appear there. It was a relatively large collective and everyone was somehow involved in the functioning of the department. But you can recognize the key people who worked on the cases. But it certainly wasn't about two or three police officers: there were a number of people working with the lead investigator. But it is clear that the series cannot remind everyone and the creators need to follow a line.

The nineties without embellishments. The series from the cop's pen shows the expansion of crime

Which of the cases you solved in the nineties do you remember as the biggest case? It was a murder-for-hire in 1993. The crime was solved and the man who ordered it received a 25-year sentence. An executive around 18 years old and two associates, I think 15. Behind everything was an effort to get rich quick. It was a man who wanted to start a business in bottling LTO, or light heating oils, and he looked out for a building to which a railway siding led. It was returned in restitution to the elderly couple with whom he negotiated the purchase. But he didn't get a loan, so he tried to create the fiction that he bought this property. He paid two young men who worked for him as bodyguards 200 thousand to shoot the real owners. They found out that they could not "finish" the matter, so they found a person in a pub in Prague 6 who they knew had a weapon. He shot a lady in the back of the head on the street in Karlín. He immediately shot at her husband, but only shot him in the face. This man survived when he turned around after the first shot.

So you were up against people for whom human life had no value if it was an obstacle to their plans. Were you afraid? Everyone is afraid, and from time to time it happened that someone got a broken pencil. But we were able to support each other. The stress was helped by the human approach and the jargon we used to communicate; but that is unpublishable. I personally did not feel worried and I clearly perceived that we were on the right side. But it happened that those who could not take the pressure left.

Do police officers still get broken pencils today? No. At least I don't know about it.

Do you still see your colleagues from that time? Unfortunately, we also meet at funerals. But we will meet from time to time if there is always someone to organize it. We reminisce about the old days and we also remember specific cases when, for example, someone brings old work reports. Rather, we remember more pleasant things. But also to the fact that it was a time when we cut out the text of new laws from ordinary newspapers and based them, because the collection of laws was published late, the so-called ÚZka (or complete text) did not exist, and we had one copy machine in the department. But we always managed to get along and handle the workload. They succeeded in clarifying things and sending the perpetrators, many of whom were released from prison after the amnesty, back to where they belong. The police then stood their ground and dealt with the situation.

The 90s revived famous cases. How Mrázek or the actors of the Orlic murders ended

Did you notice when the wild nineties calmed down? Such a moment did not come overnight, the time calmed down gradually. Over time, many offenders were imprisoned again, wild privatization followed, restitutions were mostly distributed... Society also began to orient itself in the new environment and learned to live, control processes were created. I would say that towards the end of the nineties this period peaked - and sometime around 2002 it declined.

Can the experience from that era be used even today? One thing has become clear: every crisis can be overcome, and even if there are weak moments in society and for every person, they can be dealt with. Life goes on and new challenges, changes and experiences come; and new technologies. And it is necessary to be able to emphasize the distinction between what is essential and what is less essential.

Václav Kučera, Director of the Central Bohemian Police - He has been with the police since 1979; he has experience in the field of investigations and from working at various levels of management - He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Charles University - He became the director of the Central Bohemian Police in 2008 - In 2012, the then new police president Martin Červíček called him to the post of his deputy for the criminal service; he performed the function with the understanding that it would be a temporary position, after which he would return to the leadership of the Central Bohemian Police - He became known nationally mainly as the head of the Metyl police team solving the methanol case - He holds the rank of brigadier general - Within the police, he has a nationwide reputation as an innovator and promoter of the use of modern techniques and new procedures (in the past he advocated, for example, interrogations of imprisoned persons using videoconferences, now the Pol Points project - contact points from which you can communicate with the police via a videoconferencing system, or the use of drones and satellite positioning for mapping traffic accidents - is attracting attention; a complete novelty is experimental project to control compliance with a safe distance)

This text is published by Deník in connection with the broadcast of the Czech Television series Devadesátky. It is part of a series of articles that we publish every Sunday afternoon. On the denik.cz website, you can look forward to a summary of the most important cases of the nineties in the regions, interviews with investigators and investigative journalists, as well as actors and creators of the series.