SERBIA

CONFESSION OF A POLICEMAN FROM VALJEVO WHO RESIGNED: “They asked me to spy on my mother, wife, and children who were paying respects to the victims”

by Serbian Times24. October 2025.24. October 2025.

Police lieutenant colonel from Valjevo, Vladimir Janković, resigned in January after refusing to spy in front of the Valjevo Gymnasium on his mother, wife, children, godparents, and friends who gathered there every day at 11:52 to pay tribute to the victims of the collapsed canopy.

In an interview for Vreme, he spoke about how he refused to carry out the order, as well as what happened in August in that city, when, according to him, the police caused riots that turned into the beating of citizens in the streets.

Janković resigned in January this year after refusing the order to “secure” the public gathering in front of the Valjevo Gymnasium — that is, as he says, to record the names of citizens who gathered at 11:52 to honor the victims of the collapsed canopy.

“The sick minds expected me to spy on my mother, wife, children, godparents, and friends who regularly came to the Valjevo Gymnasium at 11:52 to pay their respects to the victims. It’s hard to repeat everything I said to them at that moment, but the only decent thing I told them was that I would defend my fellow citizens myself, but as a citizen,” said Janković for Vreme.

When asked to comment on the police violence that occurred in Valjevo on the night between August 14 and 15, Janković said that it was a complete collapse of the police.

“The police cordon, which was trained and prepared to stop 10,000 people, was completely defeated and humiliated by 300 demonstrators,” he said.

He stated that everything that evening was wrong, starting with the police decision to provoke the riots.

“The clashes were initiated by the police, who threw a stun grenade or a similar explosive device directly into the crowd, after which the officers began menacingly striking their batons against their shields and advancing toward the citizens without any warning or order to disperse. Soon after, tear gas was fired directly at the legs of the Intervention Unit cordon, causing many officers to start choking and removing their helmets. After several more tear gas canisters were fired, one of the demonstrators picked up a spent cartridge from the ground and threw it back toward the cordon, after which the cordon scattered,” recounted the former police colonel.

He added that everything that followed was a ruthless act of revenge by the police, which he said hunted down high school and university students in taxis and bakeries, pulling them out of cafés and brutally beating them.

“It was an incompetent, disorganized, frustrated, but heavily armed phalanx,” emphasized Vreme’s interviewee.

Read the full text in the latest issue of Vreme.