Police said Friday that they have detained a female suspect in the murder of a 23-year old native of Tatarstan in southern Russia, on Friday after he was stabbed to death on July 1 near Avtovo metro station in the Kirovsky district of the city.

A graduate of the St. Petersburg Agrarian University, Damir Zainullin had been employed as a part-time night watchman and was on his way to work from the metro when he was violently attacked by a gang.

A surveillance camera installed on a nearby building recorded a total of 17 people attacking and brutally beating the man. The attack started with a punch to Zainullin’s face. The recording shows a rapid escalation of the tragic incident.

The video also shows assailants slicing Damir’s stomach with a knife then torturing him further with broken bottles.

Representatives of the Tatar community in St. Petersburg said they believe the murder to be racially motivated.

However, prosecutors are not classifying it as such. Rather, the murder is referred to as a spontaneous street homicide, committed by what the St. Petersburg City Prosecutor’s office spokeswoman identified as “an informal group,” avoiding terms like “extremist” and “racist.”

The St.Petersburg police press office reported on Monday that the female suspect, who allegedly gave Zainullin a fatal stab in the stomach, turned herself in to the police and confessed. She is currently being interviewed.

Human rights groups describe the state of ethnic tolerance in the city as “disastrous.”

“Dark-skinned foreigners are facing an enormous wave of hostility, with beatings and verbal insults being commonplace, and even murder already a regular event,” said Ruslan Linkov, head of the liberal organization “Democratic Russia” that monitors hate crimes and human rights abuses.

Stefania Kulayeva, head of the Northwest Center for Social and Judicial Assistance to the Roma Community, which is part of the Memorial human rights group, said the wave of terrorist attacks that swept over the country between 2001 and 2004 has left a bitter side-effect: a vicious stereotype has formed in Russian society.

“A typical visual description of a terrorist in Russia is that of a person ‘with dark skin, dark hair and black eyes’,” she said.

“Ordinary Russians have seen and heard that description so many times that this frightening and hated image has become deeply rooted.”

Zainullin’s’ friends have created a Russian-language page dedicated to his memory, which can be visited at damirzainullin.livejournal.com