Hostage drama shakes locals' faith in Panevezys

  • 2001-10-18
  • Ausrine Bagdonaite
PANEVEZYS - For many it came as no surprise that the violent hostage drama that took place in Lithuania on Oct. 8 occurred in Panevezys, the country's fifth largest city - a place nicknamed the Lithuanian Chicago because of several infamous and brutal crimes that have scarred its reputation in the past.

This was the fourth hostage taking incident in Lithuania's history. On each of the previous occasions the hostages were freed unharmed. This time it wasn't so easy.

For the 122,000 residents of Panevezys the event was like a scene from a Hollywood thriller. The effects are lingering.

"It's scary to return home from school now," 12-year-old Donaldas said worriedly. "Like a nightmare, it still seems like somebody could be lurking in the house waiting to kidnap a child. Now all of us stay together in the school playing fields to play. We don't go to the yard anymore because it's next to the road."

Donaldas lives in the same block where Virginijus Savickis, a mentally ill criminal, barricaded himself inside the apartment of one of his two hostages last week. The drama ended when the man was shot dead by police.

"It was like a movie, both scary and exciting," Donaldas confessed. "It must have been terrible for the boy being held at gun point," he said.

"It all started on Monday morning at about 8:30 a.m.," said another neighbor living in the same apartment house. "I heard some shooting outside. At once I understood it wasn't the familiar sound of kids playing with firecrackers. Then I saw policemen with guns. It was so frightening.

"Policemen went through all the apartments making sure the gunman wouldn't be able to reach their balconies and snatch more people."

The building's other residents told similar stories. The shock they experienced was the same. All those whose apartments were in danger were told to leave their homes until the storm was over.

"It's all over now. What we've experienced isn't worth remembering," were the words of one elderly woman deeply affected by the hostage crisis.

Usual suspects

As The Baltic Times reported last week, two criminals, Savickis, aged 25, and Romas Zamolskis, aged 31, were stopped on the street by police on Oct. 8. Both men were suspected in several robberies and attacks on policemen in Kaunas and Vilnius and have long records of treatment in psychiatric hospitals because of schizophrenia.

They had committed minor crimes before but had always managed to dodge imprisonment because of mental illness.

"The criminals became friends at a psychiatric hospital in the Central Lithuanian town of Rokiskis, where mentally ill criminals are treated," Regina Bucinskiene, a Panevezys police spokeswoman, told The Baltic Times.

Savickis, a native of Panevezys, was released from the hospital, and Zamolskis escaped from it earlier this year.

"I spoke to all the officers," said Bucinskiene, "including the three who stopped them on the street to check if they were the wanted criminals we were looking for. They approached them from behind. When they asked them to stop, the criminals fired shots at them. It's a miracle none was injured.

"The use of guns was limited. The officers couldn't return fire because there were people all around," she said.

The policemen gave chase and were joined by another police team. The Organized Crime Investigation Service (ONTT) heard about the pursuit on the radio and also joined in. An ONTT car blocked the road at a crossroads so the criminals could not pass.

There was another round of fire at this busy junction. "The officers in pursuit at this point didn't know about the ONTT car and weren't prepared for that," Bucinskiene continued. "It's amazing they weren't hit, because three or four shots were fired at them.

"Three secondary schools are near those crossroads. The criminals fled in different directions toward the schools. Savickis grabbed Spilevojus, while the already injured Zamolskis just kept running without any orientation of the town. He's from Kaunas."

Audrius Barciunas, a police officer who fired four shots at Zamolskis, said he knew he was doing the right thing and fired calmly. He was ready to continue shooting, but children began to run screaming out of the school buildings.

A police search for Zamolskis is underway throughout Lithuania.

With Spilevojus, Savickis darted inside an apartment block and burst into 60-year-old Bronislava Varnyte's first-floor apartment. The woman became his second hostage.

Strange ways

Hours of tense, and at times odd and unpredictable negotiations by telephone followed. "We wanted to help Savickis, too, but we couldn't convince him to give up," Police Commissioner Viktoras Grabauskas told the Lietuvos Rytas daily.

"He demanded a cross-country vehicle and $100,000. We explained to him that this was a huge amount of money and that it was impossible to get such a sum. So then he asked for $50,000. We asked if a Jeep Cherokee would be good enough. He only repeated that the bigger the car, the better," Grabauskas said.

At about 7 p.m., Savickis allowed the 14-year-old hostage to speak with his mother.

The tension grew when Savickis seemed to lose his senses as it approached midnight. He stopped speaking logically and instead started to mumble. He spoke and laughed at the same time during the negotiations.

Savickis also had long conversations with his parents and girlfriend just before midnight. He married the 19-year-old in a church in Vilnius, but the couple never registered it with state institutions.

According to Grabauskas, after these conversations Savickis became very agitated and threatened to leap out of the building and shoot everyone down. Soon afterwards shots were heard in the flat, and the apartment was immediately stormed.

The operation, which began at 11:58 p.m., was led by the Lithuanian police commando unit Aras.

"The officers were ready," Grabauskas said. "They had helmets, pistols and submachine guns, and were wearing bulletproof vests. The biggest problem was that we couldn't use anything stronger, for example explosives. It just wasn't possible. Varnyte suffered from a weak heart."

During the day, Savickis had developed a friendly rapport with his two hostages. He ordered pizza and Coke for them. He also bought Varnyte's home-made apple jam, paying her 22 litas ($5.50) for it.

Savickis told Varnyte he was really a policeman and promised to raise her pension. The naive old lady seemed quite happy with such promises, according to an interview the young Spilevojus later gave to Lietuvos Rytas.

When the apartment was stormed, the boy was in the kitchen with Savickis, and Varnyte was in bed in another room. Some policemen broke down the door and others burst in through a kitchen window.

"As soon as the boy was safe, the officers tried to take Savickis," Grabauskas said. "He was ordered to drop his weapon, but instead he pointed it at an officer while trying to grab another officer's gun. So we fired nine shots at him. A lot of people wonder why so many shots were needed. Two bullets wouldn't have been enough to stop an armed criminal."

In the crossfire, Spilevojus was injured in the arm by two bullets. The other hostage, Varnyte, escaped unharmed.

Spilevojus, who is being treated at Panevezys Hospital, is getting better and will soon be taken to the Trakai rehabilitation center. The young teen says he is a devout Protestant. His dream for the future is to be a missionary. He said he felt no fear during the incident because he knew there would be a happy end.

His parents, doctors, a psychologist and some of his religious friends are constantly by his hospital bed. They say they are fed up with curious journalists and are unwilling to let the media have any further interviews with him. They claim he is still in shock and needs rest.

City of hope

Two years ago, Panevezys was widely considered by many Lithuanians as the center of the criminal universe. Now, however, the crime rate in Panevezys is the lowest among the country's cities.

"The crime situation here is better because criminal exposure has noticeably increased," Bucinskiene said.

"Last year, a lot of changes were made in the structure and workings of the criminal police. Heads of different criminal units were replaced, organized crime investigation services changed, and many younger, energetic people took over some very serious posts.

"People working on the force have become more professional, cooperative and considerate. Interaction between the services always gets us good results. We're moving toward the universal policeman. Any crime that worries a street patrol also concerns a district inspector."