Before sunrise on December 4, 2014, eight men went to the mountain village of Shalazhi and called three taxies. When the taxies arrived the men tied up the drivers at gunpoint, got in the cars, and sped off towards Grozny. When a police car stopped them in the center of the city, the men opened fire killing the officers, and a running gun-battle ensued until one group holed themselves up in a publishing house and the other in a school.