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Suspected murderer of six people detained

The gunman convicted previously four times killed six people, including fourteen- and sixteen-year-old girls

Sergei Pomazun suspected of shooting dead six people in the western Russian city of Belgorod was detained while trying to escape on a freight train from the area cordoned off by police. The gunman convicted previously four times killed six people, including fourteen- and sixteen-year-old girls, inside a hunting shop and on Belgorod’s Narodny Boulevard. Pomazun offered resistance during detention, even wounding a policeman with a knife.

Investigators have already reconstructed the accident, the Rossiyaskaya Gazeta daily wrote. They say the suspect split open a lock box with his father’s rifle, took his father car and drove to the city’s centre. He dropped in a hunting shop, where he shot dead two salespersons and a customer, stole firearms and munitions. Outside the shop he killed two schoolgirls and a man passing by. Sergei Pomazun was convicted previously for robbery and the use of violence against a public officer.

Relatives and people familiar with Pomazun describe him as an unbalanced person, Novye Izvestiya wrote. The gunman’s father, Alexander Pomazun, said on Tuesday his son “flew off the handle” after five years in prison. At the trial the murderer’s father said lately his son behaved himself absolutely inadequately. The man said Sergei had repeatedly threatened him and two weeks ago lost temper, attacked his father with a kitchen knife cutting his arm strongly. Alexander Pomazun noted that he addressed police over his son’s aggressive behavior, but no measures had been taken. The investigative committee reported that it would check this information.

Belgorod’s gunman cannot be compared with Norway’s Breivik (who killed 77 people last July), criminal psychiatrist Mikhail Vinogradov told Komsomolskaya Pravda. “The latter had plotted to rebuild world order, while Belgorod’s gunman is a malicious, irritable and aggressive person, who walks along with a gun after several prison sentences.”

He said a similar accident happened in Moscow recently. “A man walked his dog and suddenly it seemed to him that a car passed too close to his dog. He took a metal rod, attacked the car and beat a driver. Then he returned home, took a gun and shot dead the driver. He was previously convicted three times and one time - for murder. Therefore we should study not only what is going on in murderers’ heads, but also what is going on in our judicial and penitentiary system, whether it corrects people,” Vinogradov said.