Systema instructer murdered

[Bob Hubbard]

Folks, I want to interject for a second here and ask that out of respect for Arkadiy that any "heat" from comments please be allowed to cool. Some of the people in this thread were his friends, and the pain is very much there. I don't believe anyone here has said anything intending any disrespect, but at times like this it is easy to misunderstand.

Please, allow compassion to guide your words.

Thank you,
Bob

 

[Tgace]

I know, I read that too, but then the coroner says that neither of them was killed by a gun, but instead by a knife. Weird.

I wonder what the deal with the guy that is injured is?

Maybe he managed to disarm the shooter, but got caught by the knife?????

 

[NYCRonin]

If anyone here considered my previous post as being somehow critical of the turn this thread has taken, so be it - that was not really intentional.

Although that post contained abit of respectful rememberance for my friend lost...it contained some other points.

First, 'guessing' about the circumstances involved is a form of monday morning quarterbacking. And, to me personally; even mentioning the 'Russian' organized crime or protection racket in a strip mall...is supposition and also smacks on cultural pejudice. This became part of this thread after my earlier post. Because the full facts are not known -- I cannot help but feel that this is disparaging. Maybe I am too close to this particualr thread to take such ruminations lightly.

In my previous post, I also was feebly attempting to make an observation about the ability of some to possibly lay down their lives for another. As profession or as part of their humanity. Self defense is most often used to describe exactly what it says - SELF defense. Protecting a third party is much more a different thing. I am informed by those involved that Arkadiy was attempting to help another when he lost his life doing so. It is a difficult thing to accomplish, often. Systema does include a good deal of this -- and we generally refer to it as 'professional work' - and it does include that one may face ones own demise in such a circumstance.

Since all the facts are not yet disclosed publicly...and may never be so, I can only, presently; 'suppose' about the EXACT details of this tragic event...and regarded the man who was murdered as both friend and memeber of the Systema community which has become my 'family' in so many ways -- I will withdraw from this particular discussion...and request that the other moderators keep things flowing smoothly and with a lack of 'heat'.

It is hard to be objective in this thread, for me.
I meant no insult to any poster -- the opinions above are mine and mine alone.
Discuss them freely.

 

[Don Roley]

Arkadiy was a member of a mailing list I am on. One of my friends was his pallbearer.

I never met him in person, but I read everything I could by him when he posted it and I see by the reactions of those that knew him that he was a treasure to those around him. I hope that when I die, people will remember me at least half as fondly as they do him. This is tearing up the list we were members of.

 

[tshadowchaser]

I would like to ask that this thread be put on hold by all posting in it till we can get futhure information from newspaper, police or court.
If anyone want to start discussions on tecnical vs practical vs whatever there are ares where we can do that.
A man has lost his life. A family has lost a father, husband, member. Lets all wish the best for the family and bow our heads in a moment of silence for the loss of a brother in the arts.

As new facts come out I have no problem with them being presented but lets not try to second quess what happened.

 

[Tgace]

Look. I am really trying to be respectful. Those who know me know that I dont just make things up. My reason for even bringing up the "Organized Crime" issue was this...

Chicago Tribune
September 24, 2000
A DANGEROUS GAME RUSSIAN SPORTS ARE PLAGUED BY FUNDING SHORTAGES AND ADMINISTRATIVE WOES. WORST OF ALL IS A GROWING LEVEL OF CRIMINAL VIOLENCE.
By Colin McMahon
Tribune Foreign Correspondent

ST. PETERSURG, Russia -- Vasily Shestakov and the Olympic hopefuls he helps
train are neither rich nor famous.

Lucky for them.

Wrestlers, judo players, boxers and the other men at Shestakov's school are
pretty much left alone to train, eat, sleep and dream of Olympic glory. They
get by on pride, a bit of meal money and worn but serviceable equipment.

What they don't get, Shestakov said gratefully, is much attention from the
criminal groups that infest Russian sports.

Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russian sports machine has
suffered funding shortages, administrative decay and high-profile departures.
The effects of those ills are on display at the Sydney Olympics as the
Russians struggle to keep up in the medals race.

The most troubling phenomenon, however, has been the murders, kidnappings and
shakedowns that have turned some Russian sports into dangerous enterprises.

In popular sports such as soccer and ice hockey, league administrators, team
officials and star players all have been targeted. But bloodshed has visited
even low-profile sports like team handball, water polo and the modern
pentathlon. In some cities, martial arts or boxing clubs have been turned
into training schools for mob-type foot soldiers.

As a result some Russian athletes have chosen to live abroad. Others have
hired bodyguards.

"Sports is like anything else in the country," said Pavel Polychenko, a
shooting instructor who works with Shestakov at the Comprehensive School of
Higher Skill in Sports. "If there is money, there is a motive.

"Our sports are not big moneymakers, so we don't have the problems. If there
were money here, then yes, maybe the gangsters would come."

Few of the attacks on athletes or officials are ever solved, even when police
know the motive. Some of the more high-profile cases:

In May 18-year-old European junior boxing champion Sergei Latushko, an
Olympic hopeful, was shot to death in front of a Ramenskoye stadium.

In February a group of men attacked Russia's 800-meter champion, Natalya
Gorelova, in Moscow, beating her legs with metal bars. Gorelova nonetheless
made the Olympic team.

In December 1999 a BMW belonging to figure skating champion Maria Butyrskaya
was blown up in the parking lot of Moscow's Sports Palace. Butyrskaya took
the incident as a warning, she said--"but I don't know as a warning of what."

In December 1998 St. Petersburg hockey player Nikolai Nikitin was shot dead
in an apparent contract killing.

In June 1997 the financial director of Russia's national championship soccer
team, Larisa Nechayeva, was killed when gunmen burst into her living room and
opened fire.

In April 1997 Russian Ice Hockey Federation President Valentin Sych was shot
dead.

Just last month four-time Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov was arrested on
suspicion of charges of plotting to assassinate a regional governor.
Tikhonov, 47, a biathlete who ruled the sport in the 1970s and 1980s, built a
successful business career after retiring following the Sarajevo Winter
Olympics.

Some analysts say the well-publicized crimes and killings make things seem
worse than they really are. They warn against reading too much into each
individual act.

Yet the growing influence of organized crime in the sporting world is
undeniable.

Most of the violence traces to the mid-1990s. Having run out of money from
the federal budget for sports programs, the Kremlin allowed non-profit sports
groups to import tobacco and alcohol duty-free and then pass it on to
middlemen for retail sale.

Although the scheme brought in hundreds of millions in currency, federal
investigators said relatively little of the money went to the right places.
It also helped marry Russian sports to Russian gangsters, many of whom had
their hands in the alcohol and tobacco businesses.

At the same time, criminal groups were rising up out of karate and other
martial arts clubs that had existed underground during Soviet times.

The Moscow criminal group Sontsevo was born in a karate school. In St.
Petersburg, the leadership of the Tambovsky ring, which controls petrol
stations and some port activities in Russia's second city, is full of former
karate instructors.

The marriage makes sense. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian
criminal groups filled the vacuum of power with extortion and protection
rackets. Beefy boxers and martial artists made good collectors and firm
messengers.

Today, with government funding dried up for the thousands of youth sports
programs that flourished under the Soviet Union, many clubs look to private
sponsors to keep them going.

Some have luck with big companies. The Baltica brewery of St. Petersburg, for
example, funds Shestakov's school.

But many smaller outfits have to rely on private sponsors. Some are just
business people with a special interest in wrestling or skating, boxing or
judo. Some are men of dubious background.

Shestakov's combat sports school is no mob training ground. Home to several
Olympians, it was the school were Russian President Vladimir Putin learned
judo while he was growing up in what was then Leningrad

My intention was to express that this man was possibly a VICTIM. In no way am I implying involvement, or any cultural assumptions or disrespect.

 

[SonnyPuzikas]

Guessing... such a fun activity.
There is time and place for everything.
:drinkbeer :bomb:

 

[Tgace]

This latest story says it was a shooting.

http://www.dailyherald.com/search/main_story.asp?intid=3842093

Businesses reopen at site of murders
By Kara Spak Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted 3/9/2005
On Monday morning, Natasha Ivanov planned to start the expansion of Lisa's Catering, the family-style Russian restaurant in Wheeling she and other immigrant owners proudly helped grow into a prosperous business.

Instead, police were on the doorstep of her Palatine home at 5 a.m., asking her about two Russian immigrants found dead and a third man wounded near the strip mall where her restaurant and a number of other Russian-owned businesses are located.

Ivanov said she did not know Arkadiy Stepankovskiy, 29, and Roman Drobetskiy, 34, the two men slain behind a Hintz Road strip mall.

By Tuesday evening, Wheeling police and investigators with the multi-jurisdictional North Regional Major Crimes Task Force were continuing to interview many in the Russian community, trying to chase down leads.

No arrests had been made as of Tuesday night, though the investigation continued to center on the local Russian community.

"We're still questioning a lot of people," said Wheeling police Deputy Chief John Stone. "We're still trying to put it all together."

Wheeling police said Monday the two men were fatally shot, and residents at nearby Mallard Lakes apartment complex reported hearing shots fired. A spokesman at the Cook County Medical Examiner's office said Tuesday Drobetskiy suffered multiple stab wounds and Stepankovskiy was beaten.

Drobetskiy lived in Wheeling with his wife. Stepankovskiy, who lived in Des Plaines with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, was a knife-fighting martial arts expert who ran the Systema Academy of Self Protection in Chicago.

The Russian-owned stores lining the Garden Fresh Plaza on Hintz Road - including Ivanov's restaurant and a Russian-owned real estate office, liquor store, cell phone store, jewelry store and video store - were back in business Tuesday.

Business owners there said they were interviewed by police, but many declined to speak about the killings.

"There's a little bit of talk" about the murders, said Mark Kogan, who's worked selling Russian and American videos, compact discs and Russian newspapers and books at Melodia in the strip mall since emigrating from the Ukraine eight years ago. "I don't know anything."

Ivanov said not only are many of the strip mall's stores Russian-owned, many Russians live in nearby apartment complexes. She said she's felt safe working in the area and has never thought twice about locking up the restaurant alone after a late night working.

"I've been here three years and I've never had this problem," Ivanov said. "The people who live around here, who order catering, are nice people."

Anyone with tips on the murders is asked to call an investigation hotline at (847) 853-7580.

Buffalo Grove and Wheeling were popular stops for many of the more than 30,000 Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union who have come to the Chicago area in the past two decades, said Suzanne Franklin, director of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Chicago. Others have come from the former Soviet Union on work visas or to be with their families.

"Naturally some of the growth happens where the schools are better, there are job opportunities," Franklin said.

Murders: Six stores at strip mall Russian-owned

 

[Tgace]

The wounded guy appears to have only been slightly wounded and another person was taken away in cuffs....

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_066113302.html

Two Dead In Wheeling Shooting

VIDEO: Rafael Romo reports.

Mar 7, 2005 10:25 am US/Central
WHEELING (CBS 2) Two men are being questioned following a deadly shooting at a northwest suburban apartment complex that left two people dead.

Police in the northwestern Chicago suburb of Wheeling say two people are dead and a third is injured after a shooting shortly before midnight.

The victims were identified as Roman A. Drobetskiy, 34, of Wheeling, and Arkadi Stepankovski, 29, of Des Plaines. One man was found next to a car and the other man was found next to a fence, police said.

Police are only confirming that it was a double homicide, but they are not giving additional details. A third man was slightly wounded and was taken away in handcuffs. A fourth man was also taken away in handcuffs.

The bodies of the victims were found in the parking lot of the Mallard Lake apartment complex at 1780 W. Hintz Rd. As they investigate the shootings, police have cordoned off the apartment complex parking lot, as well as a nearby strip mall. Mallard Lake is located about two miles west of Palwaukee Municipal Airport.

Wheeling Police are being assisted in the investigations by the Northern Regional Major Crimes Task Force.

 

[Ironman]

here is video covering the issue (i'm not sure where this 'knife' theory is coming from when evidence suggests guns) :
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/030705_ns_wheeling_shooting.html

 

[rutherford]

Does the video clip show anything interesting? I'm at home on my 26.4 Kbps connection, so watching it is right out.

It's my belief that the news stories won't contain much information until more is released by the police or somebody gets charged. Nobody seems to know much of anything.

 

[ginshun]

Has anybody heard anything new on this case? Did they ever figure out what happened?

 

[rutherford]

I have a couple google news alerts setup on this case and just searched for anything new.

So far, there's been nothing further.

 

[KenpoEMT]

Just discovered this thread; what a tragic event.

Has anyone heard anything new in the last five months?

 

[rutherford]

Just this: http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23412

 

[kenpochad]

My condolences to his friends and family

:asian:

 

[KenpoEMT]

Seems that *all* of those involved in the incident have been ID'd and brought in for questioning. Furthermore, everybody involved has coped to
their part of the incident down to "I shot so and so and stabbed so and so",
the snag is that "but it was in self defense" was tagged on to the end of
every statement by every perp.

That is surreal... I guess some people really know how to manipulate the judicial system.

That's right, I said despite confessions from all those involved, this is
getting treated as a legitimate SD, at least for now.

Incredibly surreal...

For the record, Arkaidy was both shot and stabbed. The other guy had 24 stab wounds.

That's horrible...

Of course, that is *not* what you or I would be thinking about if we were charging to our commrads aid as they were under attack. ...As I understand it the **** was already flying when Arkaidy got there. It was charge in or leave your friends to their fate. He chose the former.

Arkaidy sounds like the kind of man I would like to have known. Charging into a ***** storm to help a friend...

Rest in peace big guy...even strangers regret your passing.

 

[first123class]

I just read this thread,
but may this man rest in peace.

 

[kelly keltner]

.

 

[Ceicei]

. :asian: