The key facts

  • A police colonel in Armavir shot at a 19-year-old driver in a car wash queue
  • The original sentence — a year and a half in a penal colony — was replaced with six months of correctional labor
  • The prosecutor's office and the victim's family challenged the decision; the Fourth Cassation Court will review the case

What happened and how the charges were reclassified

In Armavir, Krasnodar Krai, the head of the criminal investigation department, police colonel Alexander Grashkov attacked a 19-year-old driver who was standing in line to have his car interior cleaned at a car wash: he knocked the young man to the ground and fired a shot. This was reported by the Telegram channel Kub Mash, which is cited by Gazeta.Ru.

Court decisions and next steps

Initially, the police officer was sentenced to a year and a half in a penal colony for hooliganism, but the regional court reclassified the colonel's actions as causing minor harm to health and sentenced him to six months of correctional labor, calling his actions a 'retaliatory response'. The prosecutor's office and the family of the 19-year-old driver challenged this decision. Next week, the Fourth Cassation Court will review the case — its verdict will determine whether the lenient reclassification stands or whether the case reverts to the original assessment as hooliganism.

Context of other road conflicts

In the same article, the outlet recalls other incidents on roads and at gas stations. For example, in Nizhny Novgorod, drivers got into a fight resulting in serious injuries near gas pumps; witnesses filmed the conflict on video, and the footage shows that other motorists did not intervene. The cause of the fight and the condition of those involved were not reported at the time. It was also previously reported that traffic police officers fired shots at a Nissan Bluebird with the driver inside. The outlet cites these cases as background; they are not connected to the case of the Armavir colonel.