Two June 2020 cases that put Ukrainian policing under scrutiny
A retrospective on a police gang in Pavlohrad and a shooting at an Odesa market, both reported in the days before 8 June 2020.
What did two criminal cases in the first days of June 2020 show about the state of law enforcement in Ukraine? By 8 June 2020, both were in the public record.
On 4 June 2020, a gang of police officers was exposed in Pavlohrad, in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The group was organised by Dmytro Serdiuk, head of the local police station. The case concerned officers allegedly working as a criminal group, rather than an outside group threatening public order.
Two days earlier, on 2 June 2020, shooting broke out at the Seventh Kilometre market in Odesa. Two people were injured and ten were detained.
Two different problems
The two incidents differed in kind. The Odesa shooting was a violent episode in a public place, followed by quick detentions. The Pavlohrad case concerned the conduct of a station commander and the officers under him.
Taken together, they placed public safety and the integrity of police work in the news within the same week. Both cases fell to the justice system to resolve.
