Police chief resigns

VILNIUS - Police Commissioner General Vizgirdas Telycenas resigned after his meeting of President Dalia Grybauskaite and Minister of the Interior Raimundas Palaitis on Feb. 14, reports news agency ELTA. The head of the police department was forced to resign after the terrible car accident that took place last Saturday night.
The accident, on the 46th kilometer of the highway Vilnius-Kaunas, was caused by Chief Patrol of Trakai Public Order and Traffic Department Sigitas Sostakas. The officer was intoxicated. The accident claimed the lives of two people.
“Assuming responsibility for the accident, Telycenas submitted his resignation letter to the president. The president accepted the letter,” Presidential Spokesperson Linas Balsys said.

Grybauskaite stressed the importance of the reform and said that the main flaw of the system was the fact that the officers were covering up for each other and tolerated drinking on the job. In addition, Palaitis, as a politician, has to assume moral responsibility and do everything possible to reform the law enforcement system.
“Of course, the resignation of one police commissioner general will not solve the problem, therefore, the president is convinced that after an internal investigation is carried out, the actions and responsibility of all officers and heads should be evaluated very strictly,” Balsys said

Meanwhile, Sostakas was ordered held in detention for 15 days by the Trakai district local court.
The spokesman for Trakai district court, Darius Kasperskis, said the prosecutor requested to keep Sostakas in custody for three months.

This is not the first case when drunken police officers have caused fatal accidents. On Nov. 7, 2007, intoxicated police officer Saulius Paulikas, from Skuodas, drove his BMW into three schoolboys on their way home in Aleksandrija, Skuodas district. The boys died. Paulikas left the site of the accident and hid without helping any of the children. He was sentenced to 9 years imprisonment.

After that tragedy, the then Police Commissioner General Vytautas Grigaravicius and Interior Minister Raimondas Sukys both resigned.