Story By: James King, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
This is the shocking moment Russian cops shut the door on a drunken man after he vandalised his cell and boiling hot water burst into the room – leaving him with horrific burns after it was flooded.
Ivan Vshivkov, whose age was not given but who was reported to be married with a young daughter, had been arrested for drunkenness.
He was locked in a police holding cell in the Moskovsky district of the Russian city of Kaliningrad when he started angrily dismantling the radiator.
The footage shows one of the cell keepers having a conversation with him as he vandalises the radiator kept hidden behind the grille, which he had managed to bend forwards.
He is seen straining on the hot water pipe, and the conversation in the video lasts for 30 seconds, at the end of which he manages to wrench the pipe free – sending boiling hot water into the room and over his hands.
Instead of moving in to take the man to care immediately, the wardens shut the door, leaving him inside as the boiling hot water flows onto the floor.
A press statement obtained by Newsflash and issued by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation of the Kaliningrad Region at the time claimed that he was immediately taken to hospital.
It added that “despite the timely intervention of qualified medical care, he died”.
However, the court decided that this was not correct, based on several factors.
These included the fact that although the hot water seen spraying out in the footage seems only to affect his hands and possibly his lower arms, when he was eventually treated, he was found to have suffered burns to 95 percent of his body.
The man, who died from his injuries following the incident in October 2019, left behind his parents, wife and daughter, who took legal action.
The court, which has now rejected the claims from the police wardens at the time, has said it was clear that the man was not treated immediately, and worse, was left in a cell rapidly filling with boiling water.
They said the evidence indicated that he was left in the cell with the hot water for about half an hour, and the former shift chief of the duty unit at the police department, Nikolai Plebukh, was earlier found guilty of negligence.
Plebukh was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, and another police officer was also jailed.
The family of the dead man has now been awarded RUB 2 million (GBP 20,400) from the Ministry of Finance, which is to be divided equally between his parents, his wife and his daughter.
