The 1992 Tatarstan shooting was a

mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

which occurred in Tatarstan, Russia, on 26 April 1992. The perpetrator, Andrey Shpagonov, shot and killed 9 people and seriously injured another during a

robbery Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...

attempting to steal

firearms A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes c ...

from his former workplace with the State Courier Service. Shpagonov and his accomplice, Dmitri Kovalev, were arrested and sentenced to death and 15-years imprisonment, respectively. On 11 November 1995, Shpagonov was executed by shooting.

Background

Andrey Shpagonov

Andrey Shpagonov () was born on 13 September 1969, in Kazan, Tatarstan, Soviet Union. He was released from compulsory military service in the Soviet Army due to illness, instead attending a vocational school from which he graduated. Shpagonov worked at a factory before joining the Tatarstan branch of the State Courier Service. At work he established himself as a loner, where he was known to be withdrawn and uncommunicative. Despite this, Shpagonov was a talented marksman, and regularly received promotions in the service. According to his former colleagues, Shpagonov became involved in petty theft. At the beginning of 1991, Shpagonov was dismissed from the State Courier Service for

non-compliance In general, compliance means conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. Compliance has traditionally been explained by reference to the deterrence theory, according to which punishing a behavior will decrease the viol ...

in his position, and after the dismissal worked as a security guard in a private furniture store in Kazan, but was soon dismissed for an unknown reasons. Shpagonov also tried to organize his own trading business, but failed.

Preparation

In December 1991, due his dismissals and failed business ventures, Shpagonov formulated a plan to steal weapons that had been held at his former workplace with the State Courier Service, enlisting the help of his cousin, Dmitri Kovalev, as a driver. Despite refusing at first because he feared the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

in the event they were caught, Kovalev later accepted as he was heavily in debt and Shpagonov promised to make sure there were no witnesses. Shpagonov then spent four months preparing for the

. He was a good shooter, but he had no friends. Andrey worked as a huntsman, but he was sacked. After the attack, he ran away and dumped all the stolen firearms, but he was captured, sentenced to death and executed on 11 November 1995. His accomplice was jailed for 15 years.

Shooting

At 10 p.m. Shpagonov on 26 April 1992, went to his former workplace at the State Courier Service in Kazan, armed with a knife and a Makarov pistol. After sneaking into the second floor of the building through a door which had not closed properly, he gunned down one man (named Lepuhin ) and stabbed him numerous times. Shpagonov went into another room where he shot and stabbed sleeping Shmelev (), then moving to the first floor and killing Komardin, who was also sleeping, before looting the men's

government-issued G.I. are initials used to describe the soldiers of the United States Army and airmen of the United States Air Force and general items of their equipment. The term G.I. has been used as an initialism of "Government Issue", "General Issue", or " ...

firearms. All three of the men had been drinking vodka, and were former colleagues of Shpagonov. When another employee Nogaytsev rang the doorbell requesting entry to the building, Shpagonov let him in then shot him in the back of the head. After that he went to an administrative office and shot at four women, killing three and wounding one, Lyalya Forseyeva (). One of the women managed to exit the building trying to flee, but Shpagonov caught and killed her. Forseyeva, who was badly injured but survived, moved to a room where she locked herself inside, called the police, and wrote Shpagonov's name on the floor using her blood in case he killed her. Shpagonov heard Forseyeva's footsteps and searched the building, but after finding nothing he returned to the administrative office where he discovered one of the women he shot was still alive. Assuming the footsteps had been the woman's, he shot her in the head before packing 67

and more than 700 rounds of

ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weap ...

that were in the building. As Shpagonov was about to leave the doorbell rang when another employee, Sadriev (), and his driver had recently arrived from Moscow. The two entered the building to discover a dead body in the lobby, where Shpagonov shot and killed them before dousing the building with gasoline and setting it on fire. Dmitri Kovalev, who was waiting for Shpagonov outside, saw the building on fire, and assuming something had gone wrong with the robbery he drove off. Shpagonov walked around the building and ran into a few people, but managed to distract them by shouting that there were people inside the burning building. The killer attempted to leave in a car belonging to the State Courier Service with the guns and ammunition he had stolen, but after the car would not start he abandoned both. Shpagnov then fled on foot, dumping his Makarov pistol into a nearby river.

Investigation

The building fire was eventually extinguished, where the bodies of 9 dead people and Lyalya Forseyeva (who was unconscious) were found, and the stolen weapons and ammunition were found in the State Courier Service car. Forseyeva's inscription written in blood was also found, but due to the effects of the

fire suppression Wildfire suppression is a range of firefighting tactics used to suppress wildfires. Firefighting efforts in wild land areas require different techniques, equipment, and training from the more familiar structure fire fighting found in populated a ...

it was difficult to read, but in the end investigators agreed on the opinion that the inscription could be the name or surname. During later analysis the inscription was compared to the names of the employees, including the former employees which included Shpagonov. While recovering, Forseyeva testified against Shpagonov, and he was declared a

wanted man Wanted Man, or A Wanted Man or The Wanted Man may refer to: Books *A Wanted Man a Lee Child novel *A Most Wanted Man, a John Le Carre novel Film and television * ''A Most Wanted Man'' (film), film based on the John Le Carre novel *Wanted Man, TV ep ...

by the police. Kovalev was quickly detained, at first giving

false testimony Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...

, saying that on the day of the robbery he and his brother went to Kazan to have fun, visiting a cinema and a cafe. However Kovalev was questioned again, this time warning that if he did not begin to cooperate with the investigation he would be given partial responsibility for the killing of the nine people, later admitting complicity in the raid.

Arrest and conviction

Police received information that Shpagonov had visited his cousin, washed, dressed and left, then he called his former vocational school teacher, so she got in touch with his family and through them gave him warm clothes, as he was about to flee to Siberia. The police found out that the call was made from

Agryz Agryz (russian: Агры́з; tt-Cyrl, Әгерҗе, ''Ägerce'') is a town and the administrative center of Agryzsky District in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, located on the Izh River (Volga's basin), east of Kazan. As of the 2010 Census ...

, and in the morning of 4 May 1992, Shpagonov was arrested, immediately confessing to the crime and later showing police the place in the river where he threw his gun. At the trial a few months later, Andrey Shpagonov was sentenced to death, filing petitions for clemency but they were all rejected. Shpagonov had understood that he could face execution, attempting to pass himself off as

insane Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to ...

and began talking about the voices in his mind, ordering him to kill, but forensic examination found him sane and able to take responsibility for their actions. On 11 November 1995, Shpagonov was executed by shooting in Kazan. Dmitri Kovalev was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for his complicity in the crimes. He was released from prison early in 2005. His subsequent fate is unknown. Lyalya Forseyeva received an award for her courage and on 26 April 2012, the twentieth anniversary of the shooting, she gave an interview to the program Capital: Results of the Week.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tatarstan shooting Massacres in Russia Massacres in 1992 20th-century mass murder in Russia Mass shootings in Russia Deaths by firearm in Russia April 1992 events in Asia 1992 mass shootings in Europe ru:Шпагонов, Андрей Александрович tt:Андрей Шпагонов 1992 murders in Russia