A visit to the café turned out to be extremely unpleasant for one man in Aizkraukle — he ended up in the hospital with a deep stab wound inflicted by another aggressive customer, reports the Degpunktā program (TV3).
On Sunday afternoon, when quite a few visitors had gathered at the "Betija" café, the calm atmosphere was disrupted by a man who clearly had not come for a meal.
"He was behaving aggressively, swearing," said the café staff. The attendees made a remark to him, which caused the man to become very irritated, after which he headed to the neighboring store "Beta," located in the same premises.
"He ran out of the café, grabbed a knife, turned everything upside down, and ran back to the café," said an employee of the neighboring store.
Bloodstains are still visible on the white floor — they indicated to the saleswomen that a crime had occurred in the café. The victim was one of the visitors who had been most actively trying to reason with the hooligan. The aggressor stabbed him in the arm:
"It was serious. He punctured an artery or a vein; there was a lot of blood, oh… Good thing it was in the arm."
"The injured man was born in 1957; he was taken to a medical facility. The perpetrator has been detained. He had previously come to the attention of the police," explained State Police representative Ruta Strauhtniece.
Less than three weeks before this incident, another aggressively inclined person had already "visited" these same premises. At that time, the staff had called the police several times, but according to them, no one came to assess the situation.
Both incidents have instilled doubts in the staff about how safe it is to feel in the city, as there seems to be a lack of police presence. The local government explained that round-the-clock duty in the territory of the region is provided by the State Police, while the municipal police lack the resources for full order maintenance.
"The number of municipal police in Aizkraukle is small to monitor safety throughout the region around the clock. We are available for calls during working hours from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. It should be noted that for improving public order, two inspector positions have been allocated for 2025, which allows for organizing episodic duties from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM, but not on weekends and holidays," said the municipal police of Aizkraukle.
Currently, the police have seized video recordings from the café, and the investigation of the incident is ongoing as part of the criminal process.
