Five members from different state law enforcement agencies were shot dead in a shooting incident reportedly by mistake in the village of Kniazhychi in Brovary district, Kyiv region, in the early hours of December 4.
”A criminal investigation team from Kyiv was working on an operation to detain a dangerous gang of robbers who have regularly looted apartments of residents of Kyiv and Kyiv region. Criminal investigators were informed that night that another robbery was expected in the village of Kniazhychi. A group of criminal investigators and an SWAT team went there,” adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, Anton Gerashchenko, disclosed the details of the incident on his Facebook page.
Police officers who were engaged in surveillance were deployed in a private house under construction on a street in Kniazhychi. Their task was to monitor the situation and give a command to detain the criminals.
”They planned a typical operation to catch a gang of robbers red-handed. However, a tragic chain of events prevented this from happening. An anti-burglar alarm was automatically activated in a house next door. A group of the state guard service arrived at the scene, they spotted and detained two surveillance officers. Meanwhile, the SWAT team decided that the surveillance officers were in trouble, being captured by the criminals who might have uncovered them, and drove their van to the street where the state guard service members had detained the surveillance officers. Further, there was a shooting between the state guard service and the SWAT officers, which lasted for some moments and claimed the lives of five,” Gerashchenko wrote.
Two members of the state guard service, two police surveillance officers and one SWAT team member were shot to death, he wrote.
Investigators from the local prosecutor`s office are now working on the scene to retrace the events and establish the cause behind the incident.
Having heard the gunfire, three suspects in the robbery who were to be caught red-handed gave up their plan and left the scene in two Toyota Land Cruiser 200 cars, heading for Kyiv, where they were detained by the police. Their firearms were seized. They are facing charges of robbery.
The National Police have confirmed the abovementioned theory, adding that the incident happened at 04:00 local time on Sunday, December 4.
