RIA Novosti: 1,200 Detained at Vegetable Warehouse Targeted in Anti-Migrant Riots

[Video here http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131014/184131781/380-Held-Overnight-After-Anti-Migrant-Riot-in-Moscow-Suburb.html]

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 14, 2013) ­ Russian police said Monday that 1,200 people had been detained at a vegetable warehouse in a Moscow suburb that was one of the main targets of anti-migrant rioters during a night of violent clashes in the area.

Helicopters and over a thousand police officers were dispatched to Biryulyovo in Moscow’s Southern District on Sunday afternoon as crowds began attacking police lines and local businesses, including the vegetable warehouse, after a young Russian man was knifed to death last week by a suspect believed to be non-Russian.

“During a preventative raid on a vegetable warehouse in the Biryulyovo district about 1,200 people were taken to police precincts to be checked for involvement in criminal activity,” a police spokesperson said.

The move comes after police said that 380 people were detained during overnight disturbances. The Health Ministry said that 23 people sought medical help, and police said that six riot police officers were injured in the skirmishes, and two have been hospitalized.

“Bottles and stones were flying from all sides, people were prepared,” said Stanislav Tumakov, a police lieutenant colonel injured in the confrontation.

Several small stores were damaged in the violence, and media pictures from the area showed overturned cars surrounded by smashed watermelons.One video clip showed a group of protestors chanting nationalist slogans and breaking into a shop, smashing glass and setting off smoke bombs.

The disorder focused on a police headquarters, but nearby stores and the vegetable warehouse were also targeted, apparently in the belief that they employed large numbers of migrant workers, Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported.

One piece of footage showed rioters breaking down the gates to the vegetable warehouse, and rampaging through the facility, smashing windows and overturning equipment.

Police said late Monday morning that 308 of the 380 detained during overnight disturbances would be released without charge, 70 will face administrative charges and be required to appear in court, and two will be detained for 48 hours on criminal charges. It was unclear what charges, if any, those detained in the vegetable warehouse would face.

Officials said about 1,000 people took part in the evening protest, which involved local residents, football fans and nationalist activists, according to local media.

Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev called a snap meeting shortly after the disorder broke out, the police said on their website. Kolokoltsev was shown on national television ordering police not to make any informal arrangements with criminals provoking the violence.

He also initiated Plan Volcano 5, a contingency arrangement that put Moscow’s entire police force on alert to tackle mass unrest, Kommersant reported. The plan, in use for the first time since terrorist attacks on the Moscow metro in 2010, was cancelled early Monday morning as the disorder appeared to subside.

The protests in Biryulyovo, which began Saturday, were apparently triggered by the fatal stabbing of Yegor Shcherbakov, 25, who police said was walking home with his girlfriend Thursday when he was killed. Police have said the murderer was “not a Russian citizen” and released CCTV footage of a suspect.

In recent years Russia has seen a series of violent protests in reaction to crimes allegedly committed by people from ethnic minorities. Such protests, often aimed at people from the Caucasus region, are motivated by what the protestors perceive as the authorities’ inability, or unwillingness, to hold the perpetrators to account.

Moscow police said Sunday that another incident in the capital’s north, in which about 60 people were detained, was unrelated to the events in southern Moscow.