Ukrainian Youth Killed During Holdup Eluded Help Long Criminal Record Began Shortly After Family Arrived

When Vitaly “Ryan” Kalchik started going bad at age 12, relatives and friends in south King County’s Ukrainian immigrant community tried to help.

Nothing worked. Police said he got involved in a theft ring in which cars, especially Hondas and Lexuses, were stolen, dismantled and shipped to Ukraine. He pleaded guilty to auto theft in July and was charged with the same crime again in October and November.

Kalchik’s criminal career ended Thursday when, at the end of what police said was a 90-minute string of eight armed robberies, the sweet-faced son of a Pentecostal minister was shot to death by a Woodinville convenience store owner during a robbery attempt.

His parents refused interviews, but Tonya Bozhko of Auburn, who is married to a cousin of Kalchik’s father, spoke on behalf of the family.

“There is more freedom here than back in the Ukraine, and children can do anything they want,” Bozhko said.

“I can’t say why Vitaly do this thing,” she said. “Some children are good. Some are not. We try to help him. It didn’t work.”

She said she spoke out “because we are a Christian family, and we are afraid that Americans can maybe say Ukrainians are bad people. We don’t want this. We are not like this.”

Equally baffled was Valentina Fedorov, 54, the mother of Roman Fedorov, 17, who was arrested in a stolen getaway car that crashed shortly after Kalchik was shot. He is being held for investigation of robbery.

“America good life. Plenty food,” she said at her south Seattle home. “No understand boy.”

Her younger son, Vadin, 13, is a “very, very good son,” Fedorov said.

Police said the two young men robbed a man in West Seattle and then hit seven businesses - two hotels and a 7-Eleven in Seattle, minimarts in Lake Forest Park and in Kenmore, then a gas station in Woodinville and finally the 7-Eleven store where Kalchik was shot.

Kalchik, 18, who graduated from Federal Way High School in June, had eight known aliases and used three different birth dates, Federal Way police spokesman Myron Kline said.

His earliest arrest was at age 12, not long after the family arrived in the United States.

Church members and relatives tried to get him back on the straight and narrow without success, Bozhko said.

“Many young people try to help him,” she said. “They rally around, but …”

Age differences and culture clashes have caused problems in numerous immigrant families, said Jim Pemberton, a Boeing Co. administrator who is active in the Slavic Immigrant Refugee Committee, an assistance group.

“There is a considerable disconnect for many of the immigrant teenagers,” Pemberton said. “These particular families are very religious, and what has now happened is absolutely counter to everything Mom and Dad have taught and will only add to their grief.”

Kalchik never spent much time in jail, perhaps partly because of his appearance.

“If this kid lived next door to you,” said Rob Legge, the dead teenager’s former probation officer, “you’d be getting ripped off left and right and you’d go to this kid and say, ‘Geez, I can’t believe kids today. Why can’t there be more kids like you?’ “In terms of a thief, this was a very nice thief,” Legge said, “but from a police standpoint, this guy was poison. This was not a guy who slowed his offending down.”

Kalchik was arrested July 17 for investigation of drunken and reckless driving, hit and run, auto theft, possession of stolen property and driving with a suspended license. He was released eight days later.

He was arrested again July 31 and released Aug. 2.

Kalchik was charged with auto theft and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of possession of stolen property in October. He served 32 days in jail, was released Nov. 20 and then was charged with auto theft again.

Kline said Kalchik was arrested on more than two dozen counts in the past two years and had an undetermined number of convictions as a juvenile.

“If he’s this active and he’s been caught this many times,” Kline said, “imagine, there’s probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage he’s done and not been caught.

“He was just totally brazen. He thought he was basically invincible.”