The police chief of the Aparan region in Armenia’s Aragatsotn Province, Ashot Hayrapetyan, has been dismissed following the fatal shooting on Sunday, which left two people dead and five others wounded.
He has been replaced by Rafayel Poghosyan, the official police website revealed.
In a statement on Monday, the Investigative Committee said the shooting in the village of Nigavan was sparked by a dispute between a group of people.
The law enforcement agency said late on Saturday a 32-year-old Yerevan resident, who was driving his brother's car in the town of Aparan, honked the car horn to alert the driver of a passing Infiniti vehicle, then drove around and stopped it.
Afterwards, the man and his brother engaged in a verbal dispute with the driver about yielding the right of way. Several residents of Aparan intervened in the conversation, which turned into a heated argument and continued in the outskirts of the town.
Later on Sunday, the 32-year-old Yerevan man, his brother and several other individuals went to the area near a petrol station in Aparan, where they met one of the disputants and beat him.
The conflict continued at an area near the garbage dump in Nigavan village, where the 32-year-old man, who had a gun, fired it at his opponents. As a result, seven victims were taken to different medical centers, were two of them died.
The shooter has been arrested. A probe into the further circumstances of the incident is underway.