on april 27, Major Denis Yevsyukov, head of a local police department, went on a shooting rampage in a Moscow supermarket, killing two and wounding six.
Initially, Moscow Police Chief Vladimir Pronin explained the murders by saying Yevsyukov had family problems. But then store cameras showed the policeman calmly walking the aisles and shooting random customers, appearing to be completely aware of his actions. Yevsyukov, who headed a district department in southern Moscow, was seen as Pronin’s protégé, while Pronin is known for his ties to Moscow Mayor Luzhkov.
The chorus of public outrage sounded from every media outlet, and the scandal probably would have blown over of its own accord, chalked up as a singular, tragic event. Instead, President Dmitry Medvedev fired Pronin and several other police officials, underscoring the complete failure of the Moscow militia to police its own.
While the Kremlin might paint Medvedev’s decision as a blow to corruption in one of its primary breeding grounds, critics are calling it a halfway measure that does little to assuage public discontent with the police force, despite being Medvedev’s singular decisive measure since launching a national anti-corruption campaign last year.
Following prevailing winds, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said new policemen will be more thoroughly checked by psychologists and be subject to drug testing. Additionally, policemen may be required to declare their incomes, in the manner of other government officials, thanks to a decree signed by Medvedev last year.
Yevsyukovshchina, the new colloquialism for police acting with impunity, is suddenly everywhere. In Tambov, a policeman shot and wounded a group of teenagers with rubber bullets because they passed “too loudly” in front of his car at an intersection. In Moscow, a policeman hit and run a pregnant woman in a crosswalk, killing her. A Novaya Gazeta reporter posed as an intern in a Moscow police department and described policemen drinking and smoking marijuana on duty, while ignoring phone calls.
Columnists have eagerly labeled Russia’s police system a decayed, criminal structure that only exists to serve its own interests and lacks decent public servants. Corruption has always permeated the militia, and the public has long since lost its respect for the force. A Levada Center poll last October showed that only 20 percent of Russians trust the police. A Public Opinion Foundation poll last year said that 40 percent of those polled consider the police the most corrupt state agency.
“Measures taken now are cosmetic efforts that imitate activity, not reforms,” said Mikhail Pashkin, Moscow police labor union head, on Finam radio. Pashkin said Medvedev needs to dismiss Nurgaliyev who, among other things, introduced a strategy harking back to the Soviet era, setting daily arrest quotas. “Police work now focuses on falsifying crimes when there are no more people to arrest, instead of solving the crimes that are already there,” Pashkin said.
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