ERRC Files Criminal Complaint Against Hungarian Police Over Death of Romani Father Tamás Baki
27 July 2026
By Judit Ignácz
Tamás B. should still be alive. He should have gone home to his family in Ercsi. He should have continued raising his two children, working as a bricklayer and selling fruit in the summer. Instead, his life ended after what began as a routine police stop near Százhalombatta, Hungary resulted in his death in hospital two weeks later.
"We want those responsible to receive the punishment they deserve,” his brother, Norbert Baki, told the Roma Press Center. “We want this case to receive as much public attention as possible so that something like this never happens to anyone else again."
On 8th July, four police officers stopped 37-year-old Romani father, Tamás Baki, allegedly on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs. According to police reports, he resisted and attempted to flee. They restrained him and used a taser on him at least four times. Minutes later, Tamás was unconscious, his breathing stopped, and he went into a coma from which he never awoke. On 23rd July, news broke that he had died in hospital of a cerebral edema.
The use of a taser alone does not explain how Tamás suffered severe brain injuries, as well as a broken nose and fractured cheekbone. Witnesses stated that officers repeatedly kicked him after he was already lying on the ground. Police insist their actions were lawful, proportionate, and professional.
No words can describe the feeling of injustice and grief of a family demanding something every democratic society must guarantee: protection, accountability and justice.
Norbert claims his brother's Romani ethnicity shaped the officers' actions that day. He believes anti-Roma racism cannot be excluded from the event that ended his brother’s life. Following the family's complaint against the officers, the Budapest Regional Investigative Prosecutor's Office has launched a criminal investigation on suspicion of abuse committed by a public official. The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) has today filed a criminal complaint with the Chief Prosecution Office of Pest County calling for an effective investigation into the potential racist motivation of the actions of the police officers involved in the death of Tamás Baki. The four officers have been suspended from their duties pending investigation.
Europe’s Rotten Apples
Across Europe, Romani people know this pattern well; they have lived it for decades. Discriminatory policing, racial profiling, excessive use of force, unlawful raids, arbitrary detention, and deaths in custody.
In 2024, another Romani man, Zsákai József (40), died following a police intervention in Zagyvarékas, Hungary. He drove without a license and fled, fearing for his life. “Stop, you motherf***er!” can be heard on the released video. József is heard begging for his life: “I'm feeling sick. Stop, I can't take it anymore!” The officers replied, “Give me your hand!” József is seen handcuffed and a few seconds later resuscitated. He had broken facial bones, extensive bruising, and burn marks consistent with taser use.
The ERRC has spent three decades documenting police violence across Europe. To name only a few from recent years: in Greece, Christos Michalopoulos (17), a Romani boy, was shot dead by police in 2023 after failing to stop his car when ordered, Kostas Frangoulis (16) was shot in the head by police during a chase over an unpaid €20 fuel bill in 2022, Nikos Sabanis (18) was shot by seven motorcycle police officers in pursuit of a stolen car in 2021, Jani Rustemaj (27) died in custody after falling into a coma in Albania in 2023, Muszunye Mircea Vișan (33) died after police officers beat him until he went into cardiac arrest in Romania in 2023, a Romani boy named Goszko (17) was shot dead while collecting hay in Bulgaria in 2018, and Stanislav Tomas (46) died after police knelt on the back of his neck more than 4 minutes in the Czech Republic in 2021’ a macabre simile of the police murder of George Floyd in the United States.
Impunity and Lack of Accountability
Across Europe, far-right movements continue to label Romani communities as threats to public order, criminality, burdens on welfare systems, or symbols of social disorder. Authoritarian governments pass security measures, expand police powers, weaken independent oversight, and portray human rights organisations as enemies rather than constitutional safeguards.
ERRC research has documented how Roma are racially profiled, stopped more often by police, and are more likely to be subjected to excessive force during arrests. This map illustrates the alarming frequency and distribution of incidents of police brutality, disproportionate force, torture in custody, militarised police raids or law enforcement actions resulting in the death of a Roma.
Despite damning official and eyewitness accounts, police actions are too often excused, complaints are routinely dismissed, officers are rarely prosecuted, and the burden of fighting for justice falls on victims' families rather than on the state. Romani families struggle for too many years to demand justice with little to no results and convince authorities to investigate what happened to their loved ones.
In Tamás’s case, the police's internal command investigation into the officers' actions found no evidence of unlawful conduct, the police stated on their Facebook page on Saturday.
Justice for Roma
József Oláh of the Dignity for Roma Movement said: “We want the guilty to receive the punishment they deserve, whether they are police officers or civilians."
The series of neo-Nazi terror attacks against Romani people in Hungary in 2008-2009 - and the proceeding police negligence, destruction of evidence, and failure to protect Romani life - ruined any trust many Roma had in the state, judiciary, and law enforcement institutions. The new Hungarian government now faces a test. The criminal investigation into Tamás Baki's death must be fully transparent and impartial. They must examine the use of excessive police force, anti-Roma racism as an influence on their actions, and the inconsistency between the official statement and the testimony of witnesses.
Romani families, activists, civil society organizations, and many human rights defenders are simply demanding that the law applies equally to everyone, including those entrusted to enforce it. No one is above the law, not even the police. We must demand justice for Roma.
The ERRC's criminal complaint (available here) was sent to the Chief Prosecution Office of Pest County as well as the Office of the Prosecutor General of Hungary and the Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights.
