'In a statement sent to reporters on June 3, the Kyiv-based Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), echoed Sovsun's sentiment, calling the alleged police rape and shoot-out "evidence of the desperate need for real police reform and the resistance of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov to bringing changes." ''KYIV -- The 26-year-old woman was brought to a police station in the central Ukrainian town of Kaharlyk, where officers told her she would be questioned as a witness to an alleged theft. But according to the State Bureau of Investigation, two policemen covered her face with a gas mask and handcuffed her, fired a gun over her head and then raped her several times on the night of May 23.
A week later and just 90 kilometers north, in a residential suburb of Kyiv, some 100 gunmen from two rival criminal gangs engaged in a shoot-out in broad daylight. The melee, a video of which went viral, left several people wounded and spawned comparisons to the anarchic, hyper-violent video game Grand Theft Auto on social media.
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These are not the first calls for Avakov's dismissal during his six-year tenure but they are the latest -- and they seem to be louder and coming from more circles than before.
Those expressing their desire for his ouster include members of civil society, especially human rights groups and anti-corruption activists, and lawmakers, some of them from President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's ruling party. They argue that Avakov has abused his power for too long and failed to reform a law enforcement system that prioritizes politics over protecting the public.
"Let's face it, he's been the interior minister for the past six years and six years is a long term, an amount of time that allows a person to make changes," Inna Sovsun, a lawmaker from the Holos (Voice) party who is pushing for Avakov's removal, told RFE/RL. "If there was a chance he was going to do something, he would have done it already."
"That is our argument [for his dismissal]: It's not because of this rape case or the shooting. It's because those two cases are examples of the biggest problems facing law enforcement in Ukraine, which he's not dealing with," Sovsun said.
Her party had gathered 55 signatures from lawmakers across parties in support of Avakov's dismissal by June 2. But at least 150 signatures are needed to force an extraordinary session of the 450-seat parliament to discuss his removal.
In a statement sent to reporters on June 3, the Kyiv-based Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), echoed Sovsun's sentiment, calling the alleged police rape and shoot-out "evidence of the desperate need for real police reform and the resistance of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov to bringing changes."
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'No Police Reform'Critics say Avakov's expansive powers have hampered efforts to implement crucial reforms of the law enforcement system.
Khatia Dekanoidze, a former Georgian minister who served as chief of Ukraine's National Police from November 2015 to November 2016, told RFE/RL that reforms she moved to put in place had since been upended.
As part of those reforms, Dekanoidze imposed a vetting process for the police that saw more than 5,600 corrupt and unprofessional officers, or about 6 percent of the police force, fired.
Today, that process no longer exists and many of those officers have been rehired after courts ruled against their firing, she said. "There is no police reform at all," Dekanoidze said. "The [National] Police is a swamp, frankly speaking."
Critics charge that the reform failure has allowed organized criminal activity to flourish, perpetrators of serious crimes that have shaken the country to go unpunished, and law enforcement to operate with impunity.
Sovsun cited reporting from civil rights groups that found some 60,000 cases of police brutality and torture within police departments occur in Ukraine each year. "This is a terrible, terrible number and it shows that the system isn't functioning to protect the people of Ukraine." '
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Calls For Dismissal Of Ukraine's Powerful Interior Minister Grow Louder After Alleged Police Rape, Gangland Shooting, june 3, 2020Context(Total Police Reform) - The Problem of Policing and Local Public Economics(Total Police Reform) - American police shoot, kill and imprison more people than other developed countries. Here's the data