Forchheim district court: garden dispute with baseball bat

On tuesday, a 20-year-old man stood trial for attempted grievous bodily harm at forchheim district court. Prosecutor’s office accuses him of attacking two 16-year-old youths with a baseball bat in a screaming garden.

According to the indictment, however, they were able to avoid the blow and remained uninjured. Shortly thereafter, the accused is also alleged to have kicked another teenager in the back with his knee. After this act, he is said to have turned back to the previous injured parties in order to attack them again with the baseball bat. This attempt also failed. The act is said to have happened in april 2016 around 10 pm.

Chased through the garden

The damaged youths reported that during a party on an allotment plot they were repeatedly loudly insulted from the neighboring garden. The ensuing discussion at the parcel boundary is said to have been interrupted: according to one of the injured, the then 18-year-old had been hit with "a baseball bat pierced with nails or wrapped in barbed wire" rushed towards them and jumped over the fence. When they fled, he allegedly ran after them, but only hit a wooden post at the exit with his baseball bat. The other accused confirmed this accusation. Both explained in court that the defendant was so drunk at the time of the crime that he could "hardly stand" could. However, both witnesses, independently of each other, could only remember a caused back injury after the hearing protocol had been read out.

During the questioning of the witnesses, defense attorney gerald haulitschek talked himself into a frenzy. In court they could not remember essential details. The defender explained that it was a mystery to him how a man could have been so drunk one moment that he had problems standing upright and the next moment he was jumping over fences with a baseball bat and running after them. "The fate of a young man hangs on this trial", defense attorney gerald haulitschek was upset.

According to the accused, however, the evening went quite differently: he wanted to have a barbecue with a friend in his garden. In the course of the evening, they had heard how young people were groping on the neighbor’s property and had seen them urinating in the garden. The defendant and his buddy suspected that the youths had gained access illegally. To confront them, the defendant’s acquaintance kicked the fence.
As a result, one of the youngsters is said to have stormed into the garden of the barbecuers with his arms wide open. He wanted to know if her behavior was "a problem" for the defendant be. Thereupon the friend of the defendant had threatened with a call to the police. Until then, the defendant had not interfered in the dispute. Because the young man did not walk, he had stood by his friend .

Police officers do not find a weapon

The teenager then fled the garden with his friends. "When the police came and searched everything for twenty minutes for a baseball bat, I was shocked", the friend of the accused recalled. For judge silke schneider, however, it was incomprehensible why the defendant had refused to testify to the police at the time. "When someone says nothing, this is what comes out of it!"

The 20-year-old justified himself: he told the police officers that the accusations were "nonsense" but he thought it was so absurd that he did not consider a complete reconstruction of the evening to be necessary.

The patrolman who was called in at the time was also called as a witness. He documented a damage to a wooden post that matched the course of events, but was unable to find a matching murder weapon. Since another witness did not appear in court despite being summoned, the trial will be continued at the beginning of april.