Police Maj. Denis Yevsyukov, who heads a southern Moscow police department, opened fire just after midnight and was detained after killing a driver, a supermarket cashier and customer, federal investigators said in a statement.
Yevsyukov, whose wife had recently left him, finished his late shift Sunday and hitched a ride to the supermarket, Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin told Russian television. Yevsyukov was in civilian clothes, with one part of his uniform slung around his shoulders, Pronin said.
Yevsyukov shot the driver of the car with a gun that Russian news agencies reported was unlicensed. Yevsyukov then entered a supermarket and killed a cashier and customer before shooting at least seven others, authorities said.
Details of those killed were unavailable, but Russian news agency Interfax reported that four people were hospitalized with head injuries and they were aged between 19 and 23.
Russian television network NTV reported that supermarket employees activated a silent alarm to alert police as the shooting progressed. Yevsyukov shot and missed at an officer who managed to disarm and detain him, NTV said.
"He killed the cashier, we know for sure, and then there were more shots, three shots inside the store," a young, unnamed female witness told NTV. "Then a shop assistant came running up to us and asked: ´What are you doing here? There is a killer here and you should run away,´" the witness said.
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