On the eve of Russia’s new police reform law coming into effect, the LA Times features some particularly harrowing accounts of the experiences of residents of Nizhny Novgorod at the hands of local police.  These sobering testimonies act as a pointed reminder that reform of the country’s brutalized law enforcement culture remains desperately needed.  The story focuses on one man in particular, former taxi driver Alexei Yakimov, whose run-in with the police forces culminated in his near death.  The reporter points out however:

As horrifying as Yakimov’s story is, Igor Kalyapin says there are many worse ones that have been hushed up by police. “Victims and witnesses were scared into silence, blackmailed or bought and complaints were taken back, the charges dropped, and the cases closed down,” said Kalyapin, head of the Committee against Torture, an interregional group based in Nizhny Novgorod.

A casual look at Russian newspapers or television news reveals stories about police raping a schoolgirl, shooting randomly at supermarket customers, beating a professor and an old woman, torturing children.