vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #152 / Social life / Reading article...

A mentally ill man axed to death a boatswain who tried to calm the suspect down after he terrorized a Vladivostok apartment building for a week, police alleged.

Authorities did not release the full names of either the victim or the suspect, but the Oct. 18 killing was reportedly committed by a man who had spent eight years at the city psychiatric hospital. The hospital has been releasing scores of patients due to a funding crisis.

Neighbors said police and mental health officials had done little to stop Valery V., the suspect, even after residents of the building at 133 Krasnovo Znameni Building 1 said he attacked them and chased their children.

But Alexander Kolmeyets, deputy chief physician with the psychiatric hospital, said in an Oct. 20 press conference that Valery V. had been calm and unthreatening, and so he was released weeks ago.

"The guy hadn't been in the clinic for a long time, and suddenly he had this crisis," he said. "I don't understand why the neighbors didn't call an ambulance for a week. This is the error they made, and it ended up in a murder."

But witnesses say the hospital and police were negligent. Valery V., they said, was obviously troubled. He stuck pins into door locks and left cans in front of people's doors, so that the cans went rattling away when the doors opened. He attacked a woman, but she warded him off, spraying stun gas from a canister. Then Valery V. ran after children. Witnesses say hospital orderlies who responded to their call didn't break into his apartment, but just knocked and left.

Gennady T. a 54-year-old boatswain, tried to calm down the suspect. Valery V. had always obeyed him. When Gennady T., who would have been at sea this week, was leaving, the suspect struck the boatswain in the back with the blade of an ax.

Lyudmila Yastreb, chief of Communal Housing Agency No. 39, said police don't watch the neighborhood carefully enough.