Boy Killed on Fence Spikes: Father Speaks Out

We met the father of the boy who died on a fence in the courtyard of a typical Khrushchev-era apartment block in Tolyatti«s Central District. Outside, the heat was brutal — nearly 40°C (104°F). It was Saturday, people rushed about their weekend errands, children ran and laughed.

Mikhail sat with a stone face. He is just over thirty, dark circles under his eyes, fingers clenched around his phone. We met just as he returned home from the morgue. The funeral was the next day: relatives, friends, and neighbors would gather at the house to say goodbye, after which the boy would be taken for the burial service.

— Everyone here knew and loved my son, — Mikhail says.

On the way, Mikhail picked up the child«s photo — the one that would be left on the grave. It shows a handsome boy with big eyes, a wide open smile, and dimples in his cheeks. The white T-shirt the child wears is crossed with a mourning ribbon.

— Forgive me if I lose my train of thought… My head is spinning. I«ll just tell it as it is.

The grieving father«s monologue — in the TOLYATTY.ru article. Below, from the first person.

«Dad, I»m in trouble«

My wife and I are raising two sons, born a year apart. It«s hard for me to talk about this, but I must tell everything without holding back.

In the evening, around seven, my ten-year-old son went out to play with friends. They knew the route by heart: in the private sector, two steps from home, lived his grandmother, and the boys ran to her several times a day. That evening was like any other — a group of four or five boys left at about 7 p.m., and twenty minutes later the phone rang. I heard my son«s alarmed voice: »Dad, I«m in trouble. I think I broke my leg.»

I tried to find out where he was so I could drive over immediately, but my son couldn«t give the address. Then a stranger»s male voice came on the line: «Karl Marx Street, 27 or 27A.» I dropped everything and immediately drove there.

But when I arrived, no one was there — neither my son nor anyone else. I drove around the neighboring yards near the Burevestnik leisure center, checked the area around the building. All the while I kept calling his mobile without a break. Again and again — no answer. As it turned out later, his phone was already in the hands of that very security guard. I think he saw my incoming calls but deliberately didn«t answer, just watched me try to reach my own son.

I returned to building 27A and met my son«s friends there. They said that a man had attacked Pavel (the boy»s name is changed to comply with the law — Ed.), pulled him off the fence, grabbed him, and dragged him deeper into the territory — where, as I later realized, there are no surveillance cameras.

I rushed to the address. The gates were locked, but through them I saw my bloodied son on the asphalt. Nearby stood an unfamiliar man in civilian clothes — I didn«t pay attention then, thinking he was a random passerby or a worker.

I broke the lock and ran to the child. He lay covered in blood, vomiting blood. I asked the man whether an ambulance had been called. He said: «No, let»s call one.« But I decided to take my son to the hospital myself…

«I asked my son only to blink»

I put the child in the car and sped to the nearest hospital on Banykina Street, which has intensive care and surgery. On the way, I called an ambulance, said I was bringing a child in critical condition, and asked them to prepare an operating room.

But instead of acting, the dispatcher began asking questions that seemed pointless to me: how old I was, what relation I was to the child, his name, where he got the injuries, what he was doing now. I hung up and simply said where I was taking the child… All the way I watched my son — his eyes were rolling back, he was losing consciousness. I asked him not to speak, only to blink, because any strain could worsen his condition.

At the hospital, no one was waiting for me — the staff hadn«t been warned. I ran into the ward and said my son was lying in the car, he was very, very bad… But the nurses, instead of acting immediately, started asking questions again. It felt like every second counted, but they did nothing… Then I grabbed a stretcher myself… A police officer — who happened to be there by chance — helped me wheel the cart out. Together we pulled my son from the car and brought him into the hospital ourselves — none of the staff even came out to meet us.

I am immensely grateful to the surgeon. Unfortunately, I didn«t catch his name. He rushed to the emergency room instantly, assessed the critical situation, and immediately took the boy to the operating theater. The surgery lasted more than three hours. At night, the doctor came out to my wife and me, said it was over, but didn»t say «successful» — just that our son was alive. Those words hit like a hammer blow. And in the morning, around eight, they called and told us our son had died.

Later, the surgeon admitted that time had been lost. While we searched for the child and drove him to the hospital, he lost too much blood. If an ambulance had been called immediately, if I had been told about the incident as fast as possible, if I hadn«t wasted precious moments searching…

«My son was just unlucky to cross his path»

Soon I learned that the children had gotten onto that territory by accident. One of them had his glasses fly over the fence — they crawled through to retrieve the item and leave right away. They took nothing, stole nothing — they just wanted to get their own thing back. The guard saw the children and chased them with threats.

My son climbed onto the fence, trying to escape. Metal rods stuck upward. He hung on them, his body thrown over — all his weight on his stomach and chest. The guard grabbed the child by the legs, thereby removing his support, and sharply yanked him down.

My son impaled himself on those spikes — they«re more than twenty centimeters (8 inches) long. The points pierced his entire body, all internal organs. And still he managed to push himself up on his arms, tried to free himself, but then the guard yanked again (or more). The spikes went in again, but at a different angle.

Even when the child was already nearly unconscious, the guard threw him onto the asphalt, and then, as the children said, even kicked him hard. That«s why my son first thought he»d broken his leg.

Later, the surgeon said that the nature of the injuries suggested the spikes had entered and exited repeatedly, that is, they went into the body in different directions. All internal organs, the diaphragm, and even the chest cavity inside were torn — bones were broken. According to the doctors, only a few millimeters short of the heart.

My wife and I are in complete shock. I cannot accept that this man worked for a private security firm. He was supposed to be mentally healthy, undergo medical commissions, checks, and be responsible for his actions. If that was all done and they still let him work, then he fully knew what he was doing.

I want to emphasize several key points. First, he didn«t try to give the child first aid. Second, he didn»t call an ambulance. Third, after getting stained with my son«s blood, he changed into clean civilian clothes — as I now believe, to hide his involvement in the crime. And fourth, most important: all the time I was searching for my son and calling him, this man had his phone. He saw that his father was calling, but never once picked up.

Now this man is in custody, but he is charged with causing bodily harm by negligence resulting in death. I consider that wrong. This has all the signs of deliberate murder. He threatened the children in advance that he would kill them. According to eyewitnesses, when he ran out to the boys, he shouted loudly: «I»ll kill you, you little sh*ts!«

I want to address Alexander Bastrykin, Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. I ask him to personally take this case under control and reclassify the charge to deliberate murder. This man must be punished to the full extent of the law. If the case is swept under the rug, if they convict under a lenient article or find a pretext of mental illness — that would be a crime against all of us.

The incident occurred on the evening of July 23 on the territory of a resource-supplying enterprise in Tolyatti. According to the investigation, a 58-year-old private security guard saw a 10-year-old boy climbing over the fence, grabbed him, and sharply pulled him toward himself. The child impaled himself on metal rods and was seriously injured. The schoolboy died in the hospital the next day.

The guard was detained. A case was opened against him for intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm resulting in death by negligence. In a video released by investigators, the man said:

«Three boys climbed onto my facility. I went out to stop them. Two ran away. One, because I wanted to stop him, ended up on the spike.»

The farewell to the deceased boy will take place on Sunday, July 26.