Policeman in Shooting Spree Suffers 'Inferiority Complex'

A police officer who killed three and wounded six in a Moscow supermarket in April is sane but suffers from an inferiority complex, investigators said Wednesday. Major Denis Yevsyukov went on a shooting spree after quarreling with his wife at his 32nd birthday party on April 27 in a case that shocked the nation. "According to the results of a [psychological] evaluation, Yevsyukov has been found absolutely healthy," the Investigative Committee said in a statement. The statement said Yevsyukov was drunk at the time of the attack, but Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin denied that alcohol was the reason for the rampage. "Yevsyukov understood everything," Bastrykin said in an interview published Wednesday in Rossiiskaya Gazeta. Bastrykin said Yevsyukov might have been suffering from an inferiority complex for a long time. "He has a young wife, a beautiful wife, and there were some family problems, and they had a quarrel that day," Bastrykin said. Yevsyukov's wife, Karine, is a blond photo model and pop singer. Bastrykin said tests had found no evidence that Yevsyukov was a drug addict. The Investigative Committee said it was wrapping up the criminal case into the incident. If convicted of murder, Yevsyukov faces from eight years to life in prison. The shooting spree prompted President Dmitry Medvedev to fire powerful Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin. Medvedev told reporters in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, on Wednesday that he would appoint a new police chief soon, Interfax reported. The police force is currently headed by acting police chief Alexander Ivanov, 59, who had worked as Pronin's first deputy. After the April shooting, the Interior Ministry launched a campaign highlighting its efforts to crack down on corruption and violence within the police force. But opinion polls still to show that the police force is among the country’s least trusted institutions, and cases of wrongdoing continue to surface. A 29-year-old Moscow traffic police officer has been taken into custody on suspicion of stealing goods worth 27 million rubles ($862,000), Interfax reported Tuesday. The goods came from a truck transporting items from the closed Cherkizovsky Market that traffic police stopped and forced to drive to a warehouse in the Moscow region, the report said. Another traffic police officer fatally struck a pensioner crossing the street with his car in the Moscow region on Tuesday, Interfax reported. A police source was quoted as saying the pensioner was not on a crosswalk and might have been at fault. But police officers also end up as victims. On Wednesday, a traffic police officer was hospitalized with grave head injuries after he was hit by a car belonging to the presidential administration. Further details about the accident were unavailable.