Videos Rouse Russian Anger Toward Police

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
NYT

NOVOROSSIYSK, Russia — One day last fall, a police officer here put on his uniform and sat on a drab tan couch before a video camera. In a halting monotone, he recorded two video appeals to Vladimir V. Putin, 13 minutes in all.

He was a nobody cop from a nowhere city, but his words would startle this country.

“How can a police officer accept bribes?” the officer asked. “Do you understand where our society is heading?

“You talk about reducing corruption,” he said. “You say that it should not be just a crime, that it should be immoral. But it is not like that. I told my boss that the police are corrupt. And he told me that it cannot be done away with.

“I am not afraid of quitting. I will tell you my name. I am Dymovsky, Aleksei Aleksandrovich.”

(More here.)