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Dymovsky, a former Novorossiisk policeman, speaking to supporters Saturday during a rally in the Black Sea port.
Just hours after Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said citizens have the right to fight off unruly and aggressive cops, a drunk Tver resident shot two policemen, killing one, and then killed himself, officials said.
The attack came after a spate of police violence against citizens, including the fatal beating of an Abkhaz man in Moscow last week, and an increasingly heated debate over the need to reform the Interior Ministry. Rallies were held Saturday in Moscow and Novorossiisk denouncing excesses by police.
The Investigative Committee said in a statement Friday that two police patrolmen spotted two drunk men on a Tver street at about midnight, seated them in their car and began driving them to a drunk tank.
One of the men, sitting in the back seat, pulled out a semiautomatic TT army pistol and shot both police in the head, killing warrant officer Andrei Krylov, 47, on the spot, and heavily wounding lieutenant Vladimir Mistrov, 34.
Mistrov remained hospitalized in a coma as of Sunday.
The killer, whose name was not released by authorities, fatally shot himself. The man was 48 years old and worked as an engineer at a local scientific research institute, Russian news agencies reported, citing local police. He was carrying a black bag when the policemen stopped him, but the officers did not search him or his belongings, RIA-Novosti said.
It was not immediately clear why the man attacked the officers.
The shooting came shortly after Nurgaliyev said citizens should fight off police officers who unlawfully attack them. Opposition leaders criticized the comments for blurring the lines of authority.
“If there is an attack, then there should be self-defense. When a policeman attacks, then he is a criminal in uniform who should be isolated and put in jail,” Nurgaliyev said, referring to the recent string of brutal, deadly attacks by policemen against civilians.
Nurgaliyev has been under mounting pressure after a series of unprovoked killings by police this year and Novorossiisk police major Alexei Dymovsky posted a series of videos online alleging that he was forced to arrest innocent people to meet targets for uncovering crimes.
On Wednesday, State Duma Deputy Andrei Makarov, a senior member of United Russia, called for the ministry to be disbanded, with half of the police rehired after screening and training. The call — which was criticized by United Russia and law enforcement officials Thursday — won the support of another top lawmaker Friday.
“There is no sense in reforming the Interior Ministry and, perhaps, a political decision should be made to follow the move proposed by Makarov,” Duma Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska told the Regions.ru news agency.
• A policeman died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Saturday in the Moscow region town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo after shooting his colleague in their car, an Investigative Committee official told RIA-Novosti.
According to a preliminary investigation, the officer shot his colleague in the head after an argument and then shot himself. The other officer remains hospitalized in critical condition.
Law enforcement sources told RIA-Novosti that they believed that the shooter, born in 1981, wounded his colleague, born in 1987, after a dispute and then attempted to kill himself.
Eduard Gurtskaya, a 19-year-old Abkhaz man who was beaten to death by three drunken Moscow policemen Nov. 23, will be buried in Tbilisi at the Georgian government’s expense, said Manana Manjgaladze, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s spokeswoman, Interfax reported Saturday.
