Police in Russia have released dramatic video of a tense hostage situation involving a 13-year-old girl and a knife-wielding man they say was high on heroin.
According to a statement from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the standoff occurred in the city of Omsk near Kazakhstan on Feb. 1.
According to the statement, the man entered the home around 10:00 a.m. local time, when the girl’s parents were away. At the time, police say the only occupants were the girl and her grandmother, the former of whom managed to call 911 while the latter fled onto the street to get help.
According to police, the man, who was shirtless and armed with a knife, took the girl hostage and demanded drugs from the police in exchange for her life.
“Around 10:00 a.m. [we] received a call from a girl who said that the house has got a foreign [intruder],” the internal affairs statement reads. “In the background, the operator heard the attacker’s demands [for drugs].”
Video taken by Russian police responding to the 911 calls shows the tense situation as officers confronted the man in the little girl’s bedroom.
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Grabbing the girl around the throat with one hand while pressing the knife to her back with the other, the man shouts at officers while the terrified grandmother is consoled in another room.
Then in a split second, officers lunge at the man, wrestle the knife away from him, and get the little girl to safety.
According to local media reports, the suspect is a 41-year-old man with a history of “property crimes” who was staying at a nearby hotel the day of the incident. It is not clear what crimes he has been charged with at this point but he is still in police custody according to the ministry statement.
In a Facebook post later that day Alex Komandykov, a press officer for the interior ministry in Omsk, praised the actions of both officers but also the little girl.
“I want to acknowledge…the role of the hostage,” the post reads. “13-Year-old girl [who] did the right thing, absolutely everything… Everything by the book, but with a reservation – she’s been through this in real life, not in theory.”