When a radio patrol crew wanted to check him after he hit an e-scooter in front of their eyes, the man stepped on the accelerator and drove away at up to 140 km/h.
The 24-year-old doesn’t have a driver’s license and was under the influence of cocaine and THC when he got behind the wheel of the Porsche. The chase that he gave the police lasted a total of 13 minutes and went through several districts, along the Lerchenfelder Belt, but also through several side alleys and streets in the seventh and eighth districts. The 24-year-old crossed several intersections despite the red light, and on a protective path several people had to jump to the side to get to safety. He drove against one-way streets and abruptly changed lanes several times, forcing other drivers to avoid him or brake abruptly.
Rushed along tram tracks
On Alser Straße he raced along the tram tracks at up to 120 km/h, at the Landesgerichtsstraße stop he jumped over the station platform and, according to the police, almost mowed down a cyclist before crashing into a parked car a short time later and coming to a standstill . “It is only thanks to a number of fortunate circumstances that no serious injuries occurred to other road users,” said the public prosecutor, who accused the defendant of intentionally endangering the public and coercion. He was originally investigated for attempted murder. Now the man, who was not taken into custody and remains at large, faces up to ten years in prison if he is found guilty as charged.
“How do you come up with such an idea?”
“How do you come up with such an idea?” the judge asked the 24-year-old at the beginning of the hearing. “It was just a stupid idea. I don’t know how I came up with this idea. If I could turn back time, I would undo it,” said the previously innocent man. When asked why he wanted to evade police control, the defendant did not mention – which would have been obvious – that he did not have a driving license. Rather, the police officer spoke to him in an unpleasant tone and was aggressive: “At that moment I simply pressed the accelerator out of fear.”
The 24-year-old claimed he had not used cocaine that day. He “maybe already” smoked weed. The defendant did not realize that he had endangered other people. “There were no people who had to jump to the side. There were certainly people on the sidewalk. But I wasn’t driving on the sidewalk.” He also denied that the parked vehicle he ended up crashing into was thrown several meters away, as witnesses had observed: “That’s not true. Not even the airbag caught it.”
The trial was adjourned for questioning by several police officers. The next hearing date is April 30th.
