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On August 31, the police news service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) released a video, presenting what kind of enhanced service they carried out in Yerevan.
The 1:25-minute video shows how officers of different police units, standing in rows, listen to the instructions of the Chief of Police, police Major-General Aram Hovhannisyan.
Police officers and patrols of the Main Department of the Criminal Police, Yerevan city Department and subordinate divisions of the Main Department of public security were involved in the process of implementing the enhanced regime of service.
Afterwards, the video briefly shows the results of the enhanced regime of service with photos: 599 vehicles were checked, a rifle, a grenade, two assault rifles, two gas pistols, and ten cold weapons were found.
The official video released by the police shows photos of the found items.
Fact Investigation Platform examined those photos and found out that what the police officers found was not at all a rifle, grenade or other prohibited and deadly weapon, as presented in the video. Most of them were just toys.
So that the results of our examination have greater credibility, we asked the Firearms Instructor Hrayr Avetisyan for a comment. He also confirmed that several examples of weapons and ammunition found and shown in the photos are toys and are available to the public, especially children.
For example, the so-called weapon with a red cord in the photo is a toy, i.e., it is not subject to registration in the Republic of Armenia, is on open sale and is not subject to certification.
“The weapon shown with a brown ammunition box is a toy, it is used in airsoft games. It is a toy with an electric pump, it shoots plastic balls at a speed of up to 100 m/s, and my children and yours can enter the store and buy it without any problem,” Hrayr Avetisyan noted.
As for the alleged grenade shown in the video, it is a toy intended for ordinary fireworks which can be freely bought in the market.
“In any marketplace, look for an airsoft grenade, you can buy those for 3000-4000 AMD. It looks like a grenade, but it is not a weapon,” says Avetisyan.
For the sake of justice, it should also be noted that a gas pistol is shown in the police video, which, if not registered, can be confiscated according to RA legislation.
Thus, the police circulated false, manipulative information, creating the impression among the public that the implemented enhanced service has yielded tangible results and that what was found was real weapon. Meanwhile, in fact, the police found only toy weapons in some of the citizens’ cars.
Hasmik Hambardzumyan
