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The suspected murderer of Parakar Mayor Volodya Grigoryan and a police officer had been on a police watch list for many months before the shooting, Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesperson Narek Sargsyan said on Saturday.
Sargsyan told reporters that police currently have reason to believe the murder was a blood feud, as the suspect, Narek Ohanyan, is the brother of a man who was killed in an earlier shootout in the same town in February this year. The late mayor’s brother is indicted in that criminal case and has been under house arrest since. He and multiple others are facing criminal charges of aggravated assault in that earlier case, and the suspected shooter is jailed pending trial.
Sargsyan added that police had been on high alert in the town since February due to information about an imminent violent confrontation between individuals connected to the feud.
“After the February incident, the police took several actions regarding the persons involved in the conflicted relations. More than a dozen times, the Vagharshapat Police Department and the Armavir Regional Criminal Police Division received information that these individuals were about to confront each other at a specific time. All individuals were immediately located and brought to the department for preventive and explanatory work. Narek Ohanyan was also under close surveillance,” Sargsyan said.
He also said that police are now implementing preventive, large-scale measures to avoid what he described as ‘further undesirable consequences.’
The spokesperson said that an internal investigation will determine whether the shooting could have been prevented by police, and if so, those responsible will be held accountable.
“If it turns out that any officer who objectively had the chance to prevent this incident but failed to do so, they will bear responsibility,” Sargsyan said.
He appeared to suggest that the off-duty officer slain alongside the mayor was hit accidentally by the perpetrator. “It is unfounded to claim that Karen Abrahamyan was the target,” he said, adding that Abrahamyan was one of the finest officers, serving since 2012.
A top police colonel in charge of the Armavir region’s criminal police department has been dismissed following the shooting.
The mayor of Parakar, a small town outside Yerevan, was shot dead along with his friend, an off-duty police officer, outside a house near Merdzavan, a nearby community. The shooting occurred around midnight on Tuesday and also left another person wounded.
CCTV footage from the scene shows Mayor Grigoryan and two men standing outside a house near a highway in Merdzavan when a masked gunman opens fire with an automatic weapon, killing Grigoryan and off-duty police officer Karen Abrahamyan of the Ararat Regional Police Department. The shooter is then seen approaching the unresponsive mayor and striking him with the weapon. The killing prompted a massive manhunt for the suspect.
Authorities announced the arrest of the suspect on Friday.