Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev continues to amaze us with his deep concern for the well-being of his fellow citizens. After his recent statement that innocent people have the right to fight back if they are attacked by police officers — which used to be an offense under Article 318 of the Criminal Code — Nurgaliyev has now made the revelation that “the Interior Ministry is going through an evolutionary process to create a ‘civic police force’ whose main task is not to punish but to protect people.”
Let’s take a look at a few representatives of Russia’s “civic police force” today. Artur Kositsyn, a traffic policeman, was arrested earlier this week on charges that he raped at least 20 women in southern Moscow. He drove around in a Land Cruiser and apparently received a personal recommendation for his job from deputy traffic police chief Viktor Kiryanov. Intimidating and built like his Land Cruiser, Kositsyn preferred petite women. When one woman was actually able to fight back, Kositsyn, the ultimate “civic policeman” ran away. He was arrested only because this woman raised the alarm and identified the suspect. His capture did not require any hard-nosed investigation techniques by the police,
In Russia, sexual maniacs in police uniforms are not so much exceptions as they are statistics. St. Petersburg police officer Denis Gribkov has been accused of committing a series of rapes against teenage boys, in some cases while wearing his uniform.
But Gribkov was arrested on a completely different charges, not as result of an investigation into the rape allegations. He ended up in custody because on Feb. 29, 2008, he and his police partner beat 35-year-old Andrei Strukov and handcuffed him, after which Gribkov’s buddy shot Strukov in the head. In August, Gribkov, was sentenced to five years for his role in the assault on Strukov. On Monday, a St. Petersburg court agreed to consider an appeal to increase Gribkov’s sentence.
Perhaps Nurgaliyev defines a “civic police force” as police officers who express their “rough love” toward young women and boys. I would like to ask Nurgaliyev, “Would it somehow be possible to go back to the old police force in which the officers didn’t ‘love’ us so much and were more concerned with solving crimes?”
I don’t mean to imply that all cops are criminals. In fact, there are many honest, hard-
working policemen. You might laugh at this notion, but they do exist — not in the top ranks, where corruption is rife, and not at the bottom, where some of the most despicable members of society are given police badges and weapons.
The good policemen are somewhere in the middle of the ranks. Take, for example, the policemen who work in the investigation section where crimes must actually be solved. These guys work 25 hours a day and even pay travel expenses on official business out of their own pockets. The worst part of this story is that while these honest cops work their tails off solving murder cases, their commanding officers often pocket a bribe from the killers, after which the cases are declared unsolved and closed.
Why aren’t honest policemen shown on television? Perhaps it’s because the baboons with big stars on their epaulets can’t accept the fact that a good policeman is defined not by the number of stars he has finagled, but by the number of crimes that he has actually prevented and solved.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.