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St.Petersburg's special task force unit officer detained after beating a man do death

Law-enforcement agents in Russia's second largest city detained a 34-year-old officer of a special task force unit suspected of inflicting serious bodily injuries, which resulted...

ST PETERBURG, February 22 (Itar-Tass) — Law-enforcement agents in Russia's second largest city detained a 34-year-old officer of a special task force unit /OMON/ suspected of inflicting serious bodily injuries, which resulted in the injured party's death, the press office of the Interior Ministry's department for St.Petersburg and the Leningrad region told Itar-Tass on Wednesday. The incident occurred during a household quarrel, the press service said.

The OMON officer was detained within the probe into the murder of a 36-year-old man whose body was found in the city's Vyborg district on February 19.

According to the investigator, the police officer, who lived with his family in house 115 in Engels Avenue, reprimanded his neighbor in the stairwell of the building and hit him several times, whereupon he put him in an elevator and sent him home.

Preliminary reports said the injured party had lived in the same building as his acquaintance's who actually kept a den. Neighbors repeatedly complained to the police and the housing cooperative about the noise coming from that apartment.

Criminal proceedings over the death of the man were opened under Article 111, Part 4, /"causing serious bodily harm, which resulted in the victim's death by negligence."/ Expert examinations are due.

The previous scandal involving a Petersburg police officer ended in the resignation of regional police chief Mikhail Sukhodolsky.

The tragedy in which a 15-year-old adolescent was killed, occurred overnight on Sunday, January 22. Police testified they witnessed an incident in which a local resident was robbed by an eighth-grade student and his accomplice. The adolescent tried to escape, but police detained and used force against him. He was brought to a police station where officers questioned him. As the boy's health deteriorated, police called an ambulance.

The boy died on his way to the hospital.

The department of the Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg reported that the crime had been solved. Police Lieutenant Denis Ivanov and his colleagues initially obstructed the investigation and insisted that they used force on the boy only when they were detaining him. However, acknowledging solid evidence to the contrary, he confessed to severely beating the adolescent using a broomstick and his fists. He was unable to explain his motives, the Investigative Committee said.