On June 26 two militia lieutenants (they’re not called the police) allegedly gang-raped and beat a young woman to a pulp in a Mykolaiv Oblast township. The victim required multiple operations and remains in critical condition. Then the police, aided by their brethren – local prosecutors – proceeded to cover up the heinous crime. They could have succeeded had it not been for escalating mob rule that engulfed the town of 8,500.
Then, on July 2, the nation’s top cop Vitaliy Zakharchenko told parliament that he had dismissed two high-ranking regional police chiefs in Mykolaiv, and pleaded for more money to incentivize police work through salary increases and other benefits. This was his proposed solution for how massive problems in the police should be handled.
No, Mr. Zakharchenko. For a real break with Soviet-style policing to take place, you must resign, along with the vast majority of your cohorts who were cut from the same cloth of debased immorality and whose sole mission is to defend government authority and personal comfort.
You should be replaced by the standards of rule of law and civility with which Western police forces live and breathe every day. And your resignation should be done honorably in the name of Ukraine’s European integration, whose end goal is to thoroughly cleanse the police force of every vile Soviet fiber.
Only with newly trained personnel re-named as a police force devoted to “serving and protecting” the public – not the government – can this nation put an end to the mistreatment and tortures of detainees, brutal rapes, cases of framing, and other abuses.
And should Zakharchenko require additional evidence, he should consult the Kharkiv Institute for Social Research. Its recent study found that more than half of 15,000 respondents believe police work is “ineffective.” The same study said that 65 percent of those who had been victims of a crime were dissatisfied with the way their case was handled.
He should furthermore look no further than a Razumkov Center poll from March, which found that only 9 percent of the nation “fully supports” police activity. That does not include the combined number of people wearing the uniform and their relatives.
