Police begin recruiting young men and women for Patrol Service in Shirak and Lori regions

YEREVAN, July 26. /ARKA/. Armenian police begin recruiting young men and women for the Patrol Service in Shirak and Lori regions, a senior police officer Mushegh Babayan said during a televised public discussion on the reform of Armenian police.

Patrol Police is a new police unit tasked with road policing, crowd control and street patrol, established as part of a major structural reform of the national police service. In the first stage of the reform Patrol Police started working in Armenia's capital earlier in July.

According to Babayan, the police had received more than 2000 applications for 770 vacancies in Yerevan. He said 55 more officers will join the Patrol Police in Yerevan soon, adding also that some 570 vacancies are opened for Patrol Police officers in Shirak and Lori provinces.

The head of the Patrol Police Artur Umrshatyan noted that about 70% of the employees are civilians who had never worked for police before.

He said Patrol Police officers are armed not only with the usual equipment, but also with pepper (gas) cans and also Glock pistols, which had never been used by Armenian police and are more effective than Russian-made Makarov pistols, ‘since they are lighter and more convenient to use in urban conditions.

According to him, Patrol Police officers also have tablets which they can use to identify a person, so as not to detain or take them to police station for identification.

In February, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced the government's plan to create a ministry of interior as part of a major structural reform of the national police service.

Armenia had an interior ministry until former President Robert Kocharyan abolished it and turned the police into a separate structure subordinate to the president of the country.

The police became accountable to the prime minister after Armenia shifted to a parliamentary system of government. -0-