A man has died from police fire after attacking officers at the Dzhemikentsky checkpoint in the Derbent district of Daghestan. No police officers were harmed during the attack.
According to Daghestan’s Interior Ministry, the man approached the officers and attempted to strike them with a knife.
‘Acting in accordance with the federal law “On the Police”, a police officer opened fire. The attacker sustained fatal injuries and died en route to hospital. No officers were harmed’, the report said, noting that the incident occurred at around 21:00 local time on Sunday.
Preliminary information indicates that the attacker was not registered with psychiatric services or the police and had no prior convictions.
Local media and social media sources have reported that the man was named Alan Gatamov, 33, a native of the village of Tatlyar in the Derbent district. There is no official confirmation of this information as of publication.
According to the Telegram channel Criminal Chronicle, headed by Interior Ministry spokesperson Gayana Garieva, the Dzhemikentsky checkpoint is mainly staffed by officers from other regions.
‘Whether the attacker was under the influence of any substances, registered with juvenile services, or what motivated him or what he expected going at armed officers with a knife, I do not know’, Garieva wrote.
‘But one thing is clear: whether he would have succeeded or not, he probably understood that he was unlikely to survive’.
A criminal case has been opened on the charge of attempting on the lives of law enforcement officers. A full investigation into the circumstances of the incident is underway. Alexandr Bastrykin, head of the Russian Investigative Committee, instructed the acting head of the committee’s investigative department for Daghestan, Alexandr Suprun, to present a report on the progress of the investigation and the established facts.
This is not the first serious incident in Daghestan involving police fire as a result of attacks against law enforcement in recent months.
In May, in the republic’s capital, Makhachkala, a shooting resulted in the deaths of police officers, injuries to other officers and civilians, and the death of one of the attackers.
In 2016, the same checkpoint was attacked by a suicide bomber — at that time, two officers were killed and more than 15 people injured.
Elizaveta Chukharova
