A resident of the Odesa region was unable to bribe some police officers and opened fire on others

Police officers detained a resident of the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi District in the Odesa Region who first attempted to bribe patrol officers and then caused a disturbance at his home and fired at the police officers who responded to the call.

This was reported by the press service of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Odesa Oblast. 

The incident occurred last week in the evening in the town of Tatarbunary in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi District. Patrol police officers pulled over a Mercedes-Benz for a traffic violation.  While checking his documents, the police discovered that in March of this year, a court had revoked the driver’s license for driving under the influence. This time, the driver also showed signs of intoxication, but he refused to undergo a medical examination and offered the police a bribe of 10,000 hryvnias.

The police officers rejected the offer and called in their investigative colleagues, who issued citations to the driver for violating seat belt regulations, driving while disqualified, and repeat driving under the influence within a year. The car was impounded and taken to the impound lot.

A few hours after this incident, law enforcement officers received a call on the 102 emergency hotline from the man’s neighbor reporting that he was threatening to kill her and his wife. Upon seeing the police officers who had arrived in response to the call, the man began firing at them from the yard with an air rifle, damaging the window of the police car, and threatening to use a grenade and a knife.  

Following an emergency search of the man’s private residence, police seized a number of pieces of evidence, including a grenade—presumed to be combat-grade—and an air rifle, which were sent for forensic analysis, and the man himself was detained and notified of his status as a suspect under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. 

Specifically, the charges relate to offering an official an unlawful benefit and hooliganism involving resistance to a law enforcement officer, committed using an object specifically designed to cause bodily harm.

The court granted the law enforcement officers’ motion and imposed a preventive measure on the suspect in the form of pretrial detention without the right to bail. Investigators also entered information into the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations regarding the following charges: death threats; carrying, possessing, and acquiring explosive devices without the permission required by law; and death threats against a law enforcement officer.

Кирило Бойко