Two Moscow cops who struck and injured a teenage cyclist with their service car over the weekend while on duty were drunk, city police said Monday.
Both cops were sacked and face criminal prosecution. The scandal also cost seven of their low-ranking superiors their jobs, the police said in an online statement.
The two officers were driving with flashing blue lights and sirens blaring Sunday afternoon when they tore through a red light near Volzhsky Bulvar in southeastern Moscow and hit a 17-year-old boy on his bike, the statement said.
They then sped off before crashing into an Opel Corsa about a kilometer away.
The cyclist, identified by Noviye Izvestia as Andrei Suvorov, was briefly hospitalized with minor injuries, while the Opel's driver was not hurt. Her name was withheld.
The two officers, who were also injured in the crash, were taken to a nearby hospital where it was determined that they were drunk. A police spokesman said they had apparently downed one liter of beer each during lunch.
Media identified the police car's driver as Dmitry Semikov, 22, and the passenger as Vladimir Kozak, 26, both sergeants of the nondepartmental guard, a unit providing commercial security services.
Neither was detained, but the Investigative Committee was looking into the incident.
The deadly episode comes as the Kremlin has vowed to reform the much-maligned police force.
Some 200,000 of the 1.2 million-strong force were removed after flunking the professional re-evaluation tests earlier this year. The purge wrapped up in August, which means that Semikov and Kozak both successfully passed their tests.
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