After seeing that his neighbor had been savagely beaten unconscious, a man thwarted an attempted robbery by firing on the attackers with a traumatic pistol from a nearby balcony Sunday night.
Police rushed to the scene in time to detain two of the three assailants, and a search for the third is presently underway, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported Monday.
Meanwhile, police determined that the heroic neighbor's use of force was not excessive, as the shots were fired from a nonlethal range. Traumatic pistols are only deadly at close range.
Accordingly, the man will not face any criminal charges, according to the report.
Russian law enforcement authorities have frequently treated the use of traumatic pistols in such situations as excessive, provoking controversy over the rights of individuals to defend themselves and others in the face of danger.
In one high-profile case last year, a Moscow university student who found herself in a similar fight-or-flight situation was not so lucky.
Alexandra Lotkova was sentenced to three years in prison after firing on two men with a traumatic pistol during a brawl in the Moscow metro
She was sentenced to three years in prison for firing shots with a traumatic pistol in an apparent effort to quell a brawl that broke out in the metro between her friends and two strangers.
Although she argued that she had acted in self defense, she was convicted of having inflicted grievous bodily harm due to the injuries sustained by the men who were shot.
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