Driver who killed two young people at the seaside caught by the police with drugs in the car and let go an hour before the accident

The driver who hit a group of young people with his car in the May 2 seaside resort, killing two of them, had been stopped by the police because drugs were found in his car and released less than an hour before the tragic accident, without to be tested. Instead, the young man had been tested for alcohol consumption. He had also been stopped in traffic by the Police the day before.

According to the chief of Constanța County Police, Constantin Adrian Glugă, on the evening of August 19, at around 00:40 a man called 112 to say that on DN39 Vama Veche 2 Mai a car was driving without respecting the traffic rules. At 02:40 he was spotted by a joint police-gendarmerie patrol on DN39, the driver and passengers were identified, and a joint cigarette and pills in a pack of cigarettes were discovered in the car, said the head of IPJ Constanța in a press conference.

The driver was taken by ambulance to the police headquarters where he was tested for breathalyzer – with a zero result, said Glugă, adding that he did not show specific signs of consuming psychoactive substances and was let go around 04:30.

At 05:25 the accident took place in which two of the young people hit by the car driven by the 19-year-old driver died.

According to the chief of the Constanța County Police, an officer and two agents will be investigated beforehand to see why they did not test the driver to see if he had consumed drugs. Gluga said that after he was let go by the police, the 19-year-old went and consumed the drug in another location, and 9 people were found to have consumed substances. The drugs recovered from the car in question are different from those found in the driver’s body after the accident, he said.

Also, Glugă said that the young man had been stopped in traffic in the evening of August 18 on the radius of the Constanța municipality and his attention was drawn to the observance of road rules.

The 19-year-old boy who, being under the influence of drugs, drove into a group of eight people on May 2 in Constanța County, killing two students, was allegedly a drug user, and his father had taken him to the Netherlands for treatment, according to Digi24.

Incidentally, last year he was caught with drugs and investigated by DIICOT, but the file was closed at the end of last year.

Before getting behind the wheel and causing the accident, the 19-year-old had consumed, according to the Police, three types of drugs: cocaine, amphetamine and methamphetamine. The young man was driving a convertible Mercedes car.

In the accident, a 20-year-old young woman and a 20-year-old young man, students at the Faculty of Geography of the University of Bucharest, died on the spot, and three other 19- and 20-year-olds were injured.

The young man was investigated in February 2022 by DIICOT for illegal possession of dangerous drugs for personal consumption, after he was caught with “0.68 g of cannabis, with a view to consumption”, Libertatea daily reported. The prosecutors ordered the abandonment of the criminal investigation, and in January 2023 the Bucharest Court upheld the solution.