site.btaMan's Death during Police Chase Prompts Two Checks into Police Actions

The death of a man during a police chase has prompted checks at the Stara Zagora Directorate of the Interior. The incident occurred on December 30, 2023. At a news conference on Wednesday, the head of the Regional Directorate of the Interior, Senior Commissioner Lazar Hristov, said that there is no definitive evidence that the man’s death was caused by the police actions. “No officer goes on duty with an intent to kill. There is no definitive data that the death was caused by the actions of our officers,” he said. 

He urged people to wait for the results of the checks before judging.

The incident occurred after police received a call about a middle-aged man threatening teenagers with a knife. A patrol was sent to the scene and an eyewitness directed them to a man in a car. As they approached him for a check, he locked the car doors and sped away. A 20-minute police chase followed during which the man hit three police cars and one other car. During the entire chase the police cars had the lamps and sirens on. 

The police tried to pull the man out of the car and as the officers started to handcuff him, he had a seizure. The ambulance service came but only established his death.

The police chief said that he would be uncompromising to offenders even when they are in uniform. 

The case has made it to the TV newscasts. 

The man’s daughter told bTV that her father was “brutally killed” by police. She said he was a former athlete who had a mental condition in the recent years.

Also on bTV, criminal lawyer Lyudmil Rangelov pointed out that the prosecutors are probing the cause of the death and not the police actions. He sees a similarity between this case and the 2005 death of Angel “Chorata” Dimitrov during a police operation. In this high-profile case, Chorata died of asphyxia in Blagoevgrad, Southwestern Bulgaria, on November 10, 2005 while allegedly resisting arrest on suspicions of drug distribution and inducement to prostitution during a police crackdown on organized crime codenamed.

Five special unit officers were tried and convicted for causing Chorata’s death and the convictions were upheld three times – but the officers were cleared of all guilt in a subsequent appeal before the Supreme Court of Cassation. The matter was taken to the European Court of Human Rights by Chorata’s relatives and they won the case.  The court decision of July 1, 2014 said that Bulgaria had violated Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture).