MOSCOW TRAFFIC POLICE UNDER PRESSURE AFTER ROAD BLOCK FIASCO
AND LUKOIL DEATH CRASH
By New Security Foundation reporter
Moscow police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev has reprimanded the head of the city's traffic police after ten private motorists were ordered to form a road block on the Moscow Outer Ring Road (MKAD) in a failed attempt to stop armed robbers fleeing from a police chase.
The motorists were unaware of what the police were planning and decided to sue the police force after the robbers crashed through the "live shield" barricade at high speed before disappearing down the ring road.
Five days later, Itar-Tass reported that Kolokoltsev had sacked Colonel Alexander Kozlov, head of Police Regiment No. 1, for "failure to ensure legitimate actions by his subordinates and a lack of proper control over the operation, which resulted in negative consequences.".
Two private motorists will be commended for their conduct.
The traffic police chief Sergei Kazantsev apologised on March 11 to an expanded meeting of the State Duma, saying, "I returned from a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday and saw that the whole Internet buzzing about the 'live shield'. I then called the commander of the road police regiment to ask him why I had not been briefed. He kept silent. Perhaps he lost his nerve."
The first deputy chairman of the Duma committee on security, Mikhail Grishankov, said, "The first data we have point to an unprecedented case of road police using a 'live shield' made up of people sitting in their cars". He said he was bewildered why police did not put their own cars in front of the civilian vehicles.
The Investigations Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office (SKP) has opened a criminal case against police officers for "abuse of powers" under the criminal code.
Motorist Stanislav Sutyagin told Reuters, "Police gave us no reason"
when ordering him to park his car in the barrier of ten vehicles.
His Mercedes-Benz was one of three badly damaged in the incident and will now be repaired by the Moscow police, currently under pressure from President Dmitry Medvedev after the announcement of police reforms and tougher punishment for policemen who break the law.
On March 10, President Medvedev ordered Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to investigate a fatal accident in which the prominent gynaecologist Vera Sidelnikova, 72, and her daughter-in-law Olga Alexandrina, 35, were killed in a rush hour crash on the Leninsky Prospekt.
The two women doctors died on February 25 when their Citroen C3 hatchback collided head-on with a Mercedes S-500 sedan that was equipped with a flashing blue light and carrying Anatoly Barkov, 62, vice-president of LUKoil, the man responsible for security at Russia's biggest private company.
Moscow traffic police angered members of the Russian Federation of Car Owners by immediately blaming the accident on the two dead women.
“The public started to react to this accident when people understood that they had been manipulated,” said Sergei Kanayev, head of the Moscow branch of the car owners' federation. He said he will reveal the names of two eyewitnesses who saw the heavy Mercedes cross into the wrong traffic lane before it hit the Citroen. “The people have agreed to talk, but they need assurances that they will not be in danger”.
Anatoly Barkov expressed condolences to the family of the victims and also called for eyewitnesses to come forward for “a full and objective investigation of the accident.”
Itar-Tass
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14905943&PageNum=0
The Moscow Times
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/car-crash-thrusts-lukoil-into-pr-nightmare/401032.html