Father defends ex-police officer accused of threatening teens

Yekaterinburg resident Sergey Cherneninov, who was detained on charges of attacking teenagers, previously worked in the police, including in the juvenile affairs unit. His father, Vladimir — a former director of Mayakovsky Central Park of Culture and Leisure — believes his son was slandered and painted as a “maniac,” when in fact he was only standing up for his daughter, whom the boys had bullied. The conversation with Vladimir turned out to be a long one; we publish the most important parts. What follows is his account.

According to the parents of the victims, on the evening of July 29, Sergey Cherneninov led four teenagers aged 8 to 12 to the Iset River. Along the way, he threatened them with a pistol and fired a couple of shots in their direction. The trigger was that his daughter complained about the boys. They allegedly insulted her over her figure. However, the schoolgirl herself called them “balls” because of their long hair, their parents noted.

“That«s something that carries a life sentence”

I believe Sergey is not guilty at all. He was raised in a normal, two-parent family. At school he was first class monitor and then school-wide monitor. Then he went to serve in the militia — it was still the militia then — and ended up in the organized crime department. Later he moved to the department for combating extremism among young people. He worked with young people and knows how to talk to them. As a good officer, he was awarded several times by the interior minister.

Sergey also worked in Kuzbass. Once, miners there blocked a federal highway, and the matter reached President Vladimir Putin. My son went to talk to them and said that was not the way to do things, because other people were suffering. They ended the strike, and he was going to be put up for an award, but I advised him to take an early promotion instead. That is how he became a major.

After that he moved to Sverdlovsk Oblast, where he was appointed head of the region«s juvenile affairs unit. That is a high colonel-level post, and that is the position he held. He had good results. All minors were under his control. Through his officers he worked on education and prevention. He knows how to talk to young people: what is allowed and what is not. Sergey even took part in solving crimes committed by the road bully Igor Novoselov.

“He is like a mentor to them”

About seven years ago, my son decided to leave the force at his own request. First he went to work as deputy director for security at Yekaterinburg«s Automobile and Road College, where he also worked with teenagers. His whole life has been devoted to working with minors; he is like a mentor to them. Now he works in a commercial company, where he is also well regarded, but now he is being painted as a maniac.

We spoke with the investigator. He said that if the media story had not come out, there would have been no criminal case at all. They wrote that he was in a drunken frenzy that day. That was not the case — my wife and I went to see him and he was sober. Then: “At gunpoint he led them to the lake to shoot them and dump the bodies.” Do you understand, that carries a life sentence. I asked the investigator whether a pistol could be seen on the store camera. He said no.

Then they write that Sergey made them jump. Why have they not written yet that he wanted to eat them? That is just nonsense — you would have to be a maniac to do that. No one chased the fourth boy who ran away. When my son came up to them, he introduced himself. Then he asked for the addresses of their parents so he could talk to them. They were frightened, of course, and begged him not to tell them. One of them even told him to go to hell.

“They walk around with knives and scare people”

When my son was leaving the police station after giving his statement, the fathers of those boys met him there. They started threatening him and said he would not live to see the evening. He called me, and I picked him and my granddaughter up by car. My son insists he did not touch anyone — he just talked to them. The other side talks about a witness on a bicycle. There was such a person. When he rode up to the river, he asked what was going on. The boys told him everything was fine. We are going to look for that witness now.

No one tied those boys up or held them. They could have walked away calmly. The boys kicked his daughter, bullied her, there was a quarrel, she ran home, and they even caught up with her by the entrance and hit her there, and then they rang the intercom and started shouting something. That is hooligan behavior. My son went to defend his daughter.

My granddaughter had been saying for six months that these boys were bullying her. There are two other girls they also bully, and they can confirm this. My son filed a counter-complaint so that they would be punished too. One woman commented on an E1.RU post that these boys had already worn out everyone in the yard and that my son was right to stand up for his daughter. We found her phone number and will contact her soon. They really do walk around with knives, scare people, kick people in the stomach, and hit them in the legs and face. They are simply hooligans. My son did not do that kind of thing as a child — I can say that for certain. I raised him.

“He was not hiding”

He is a sensible guy. I spoke with a lawyer, and he told me: “He definitely does not look like a maniac.” He leads a normal life and has worked with minors his whole life. He could not have done this; he was simply slandered. We will prove it.

Sergey Cherneninov was put on the wanted list. It emerged that after the incident he left for Dubai. On August 17, security forces detained him at Koltsovo Airport when he returned to Russia. Today, the 18th, the suspect is expected to have a preventive measure imposed.

Initially Sergey was not questioned as an accused or a suspect; he only gave one explanation. No summons was sent to him, and he was not under a written undertaking not to leave. He hired a lawyer, who called the Investigative Committee and said he was leaving for Moscow. Without him, Sergey cannot be questioned. They replied that they would wait for him and only then would there be an interrogation. Later Sergey went to borrow money from a friend (probably he went to Dubai. — Ed. note) to spend on a lawyer, because there was no one here to borrow from. At that point he did not know that a criminal case had been opened.

Later he read the article, and it said the case existed. And then he flew out, already knowing he would be detained. Sergey was not hiding — he even dressed that way on purpose because he knew about the detention. On August 17 he was charged.

About the weapon. The interrogator did not even ask him about it at first, meaning it was not considered important. But now false statements are being made. He had taken with him an “airgun” (as people commonly call a pneumatic pistol. — Ed. note), which fires little balls. That pistol is 24 years old; it is not considered a weapon, just a piece of wood.

Sergey did not want to shoot or scare anyone. His daughter told him those boys all had knives. At the river he stepped back eight meters and reached for the pistol. I asked him why he did that. He answered: “My nerves were at breaking point. I was all nerves because I cannot do anything to them. They are offenders; I used to punish them by putting them on the register, and now I cannot do anything.”

Do you understand, if he were such a “maniac,” why would he go to talk to the parents? He thought the boys would simply apologize to his daughter and the conflict would end, but they hired a lawyer and kicked up a fuss. We will prove his innocence.

Read the interview Sergey himself gave us before his detention. The accused said he simply talked calmly with the boys and their parents, threatened no one, did not shoot, and did not lead anyone to the river.

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