Sentenced to death by traffic militia

Traffic militia (GAI) officers barred the road with car with people inside to stop a drunkeb driver, rushing at 180 km/h.

The newspaper “Autobusiness-Weekly” 13 March will publish an article “Sentenced to Death by Traffic Militia.” The article contains scandalous facts about how traffic militia officers were trying to stop a drunken driver near Minsk, using a shield of private cars with people inside (among them a little girl).

Alena KALPAKOVA, Toyota RAV4, driving alone:

– I drove my daughter to my parents in Sennitsa that evening, and was driving home at about 9.30pm. I was moving in second lane, and changed the lane to a third one. Then I saw a traffic militia officer showing me to stop. I turned right blinker to run off the road according to the rules, but he showed me to stay in my lane. I stopped and turned hazard warning lights. Nobody came up. Then I saw three more cars in neighbouring lanes were stopped.

A minute had passed, and I say an officer before me waiving his baton and running away. At the same moment it was a strong blow on the back of the car...

When I came around, I say one of the cars, just before me, was steaming. I thought it could blow up at any moment, and shifted rear gear and drove back...

I was so shocked, terrified, I just can’t find words!

We received no explanations from traffic militia officers. They register us as involved in a road traffic accident...

Later I learnt that a Volkswagen Golf driver had been followed from Slutsk.

I went to traffic militia department yesterday. I asked them: “How could you behave like that? We don’t work in the traffic militia, this hell-raiser is not our problem. Where’s your special equipment? During the half an hour, the breaker was speeding to Minsk, you could have found even a tank to put on the road, but you used us, as it were war...

Yury PASHKEVICH, BMW 525, driving with his wife and three-year-old daughter, sitting on the back. Stopped in second lane. His car took the main blow :

– I was driving from Slutsk with my family. I was moving in a forth row. When a traffic militia officer showed me to stop, I turned a right blinker, and, as Alena, was going to run off the road. But by that time, Alena’s car was staying in a third lane, and a BMW was in the first one. I was ordered to stay in the second lane. I stopped and tried to leave the car. But was shown to sit. Some 30 seconds passed, and traffic officers in the front began to disperse...

I felt something was going wrong and then managed to see in the mirror a Volkswagen rushing to us. I shouted to my wife: “Keep the child!”, bore against the wheel and drew tight. The first tangent blow got in Alena’s car, and in my car. I went out...

I came around from my wife screaming: “Yura, are you OK?”

The blow was so strong that the rear of the car smashed, I run into a traffic militia car, staying on the road side. After the clash with it, my car turned 180 degrees. I have a fuel tank and an accumulator just under the back seats. I realised we could blow up and cut off the ignition and ordered my wife to get out. Then I tried to get out myself, but I couldn’t without do it help. We had to break the door...

We were said later the runaway was flying at 160-180 km/h.

We got home only by 5am. If we have been said earlier there was such a problem, I wouldn’t have grudged this piece of iron. Let him crash – I have an insurance. But we weren’t allowed to get out! A traffic militia officer saw I wasn’t alone, he saw my wife and the child! What if it hadn’t been a Volkswagen, but a jip with a bumper guard?! Nothing would have left of us!

Traffic militia officers of the Minsk Region and traffic militia of the Kastrychnitski District of Minsk participated in the operation on detention a drunken driver on the highway Minsk-Mikashevichy. The administration of the region traffic militia refused to comment on the actions of their subordinate until the examining of the situation is ended.

As it is known now, none of those traffic police officers was dismissed.