MOSCOW. Aug 14 (Interfax) - Investigators intend to request Moscow's Meshchansky District Court to take United States citizen Joseph Tater, detained on a count of using violence against a police officer in Moscow, into pretrial custody as a measure of restraint, a law enforcement source told Interfax.
"Investigators will forward a motion to the court on Thursday, August 15, asking it to order Tater to be taken into custody as a measure of restraint," he said.
The investigation believes that Tater, who entered Russia on a tourist visa on July 29 and who does not have permanent residence registration in the country, could go into hiding and obstruct the investigation if not arrested, he said.
The Moscow office of the Russian Investigative Committee said earlier that it would ask Moscow's Meshchansky District Court to take the detained American into custody.
The office said on Wednesday that a criminal case was opened against a U.S. citizen previously detained for disorderly conduct, it said.
The investigation plans to charge Tater with using violence not endangering a person's life or health against a law enforcement officer.
Police officials also filed an administrative report on minor disorderly conduct against Tater, which has already reached the Meshchansky District Court but has not yet been reviewed.
Interfax's source said Tater, a U.S. citizen born in 1978, tried to check into a hotel on Prospekt Mira Avenue in Moscow without the necessary documents, while behaving aggressively and uttering obscenities in both Russian and English.
Tater was denied hotel accommodation as he did not have a filled in migration card, as well as because of his conduct, the source said.
While at a police station later, the American hit a police officer on her forearm and pushed her, the source said.