"People like you should be turned in, but I would have done even worse." Eyewitness testimony of the attack on pensioner Dmitry Grinchiy.
Background. A video of an attack in Moscow went viral on Friday. First, men chased a pensioner out into the street, then one hit him in the chest, then the other two twisted his arms, and then at a bus stop near Lubyanka metro station, they forcibly dragged him out. "Get out, you f***ing fascist," one of the attackers shouted. However, the elderly man was released at the police station without a report being filed, but a criminal case for hooliganism was opened against his "escorts." The video, handed over to the police, shows them publicly using insults and twisting his arms. Furthermore, the pensioner's hearing aid was missing. Journalists identified the attackers as 62-year-old lawyer and Moscow realtor Alexander Golovnin and his 30-year-old unemployed son, Mikhail Golovnin. An announcement was made today on the "Zaodno" platform. fund-raising A petition was filed for a lawyer for Dmitry Grinchiy. He wants his attackers punished, and a lawyer from OVD-Info will help him achieve justice. A fundraiser was needed to pay for his services, 200 rubles. The petition was closed almost immediately.
Here is a first-person account from an eyewitness:
On the afternoon of August 9, 2024, I was riding bus 538 to the Lubyanka metro station. The bus was almost empty. We were traveling along Varvarka Street, in the center of which stands an informal memorial to the Wagnerites, filled with photographs, flowers, candles, wreaths, and flags.
“So many people!” I was surprised.
In response, one of the bus passengers—an elderly man—made a harsh remark about the memorial. Immediately, another man with a mustache rushed up to him and threatened to take him to the police. And then things took a turn.
(Only later did I learn that my companion’s name was Dmitry Pavlovich Grinchiy, and that there was a story about his repressed relatives on the Internet, that his father was arrested when the boy was four months old).
Man: Right now, Grandpa, we'll get off at Lubyanochka and go to the police. I'll file a report against you.
Grinchiy: My father was killed in 1937...
M: That's it, Grandpa, this conversation is over. You're against the people, you live here, you eat food... Now you're going to tell the police everything, Grandpa.
G: You will tell this...
M.: Come with me to the police, Grandpa. Get off at Lubyanka with me. We'll get off together.
G: I didn’t call you by the informal “you”.
M: Now you'll come with me and tell the police everything. People like you should be turned in, and I'd do it even worse. But I'll just turn you in.
G: When did the repressions take place?
M: That's enough, I won't talk to you anymore. This conversation is over. Come with me.
G: I'm not interested in communicating with fascists.
Passenger from afar: Is it interesting to support the fascists?
Grinch: No, I don't support either one.
M. Grinch: You'll get off at Lubyanka!
G: Now...
M. to another man: Now we'll take him under our white little hands...
Then the bus stopped and something unexpected happened. I started filming because the situation was clearly unusual and alarming. Two men began twisting Grinch's arms to force him off the bus. There was no one to help him; only one woman, who, as I later realized, was a relative (wife and mother) of the two men, tried to push them away from the man.
"What are you interfering with? You're a woman!" the young man said to her.
Grinchy stopped resisting, and his arms were pinned, and he was escorted off the bus to a traffic police officer. He called the police, and they arrived quickly. They copied our documents. The officers behaved politely. They asked everyone for a brief account of what had happened. I said that the two had nearly killed the old man and forwarded the video to the officer. Grinchy complained of a headache and tinnitus and that he would file a complaint against the attackers.
The police asked all three of them to go with them. "Let's go to the police station! This will take a long time!" the man shouted at the woman who was trying to pull them away from the old man. They let me go, but I asked, "Where are you taking him?" "To the Kitay-Gorod police station." I managed to see my companion's name when I saw his open passport. Then I asked for his phone number. "I can't hear anything! I lost my hearing aid," the pensioner replied, and dictated the landline number.
I wrote about the incident to the OVD-Info bot and went to the Kitay-Gorod police station. At first, they didn't understand who I was talking about, and then they said "he was taken to the Basmannoye police station." I had to drive there. I rushed into the station, saying I wanted to give some water to an elderly man who had been detained. It turned out he hadn't been detained, but was sitting there in the anteroom with a lawyer from OVD-Info, who had already arrived. They were filing a report about the assault and the loss of his hearing aid.
I didn't see the attackers again; they were somewhere inside the building, but I was told they were father and son. I also learned my companion's age: "Wow, May 1937! 87 years old!"
After filing their statement, Dmitry Grinchiy and the OVD-Info lawyer left the station, and we walked together to the Baumanskaya metro station. A friend of Dmitry Pavlovich's arrived shortly thereafter to help him get home. Then things took off, and various media outlets became interested in the story. Journalist friends started writing to me, asking for permission to publish the video, and asking for details of the incident.
I went about my business, and only that evening did I learn that social media had immediately begun tracking down the two men who had attacked the old man. And it seemed they had found one of them right away.
That same evening, Dmitry Pavlovich called an ambulance because he wasn't feeling well. He was given medication and taken to Botkin Hospital for a medical examination, which lasted several hours. The police arrived at midnight, intending to take Grinchy to a confrontation with the two attackers at 1:00 AM after completing the examination. He insisted on going home and would not participate in any investigative actions without a lawyer.
On August 10, he and his lawyer met with the investigator to testify about the incident. Meanwhile, a wave of public outrage descended on the man who attacked him on social media. So much so that he was forced to close his VKontakte page. His company's website also received many unflattering comments about him.
Today I learned that Dmitry Pavlovich is complaining of back and arm pain. The police found the hearing aid that people were already trying to raise money for, and they brought it to him.