Why is Greece being almost turned upside downby this shooting? The police may or may not be at fault here, and certainly it’s unfortunate that the person got shot, but why is there massive rioting, strikes etc. because of this?
Major issues causing pressure, only waiting for an appropriate shock to burst open violently? Once the upheaval starts, it’s easy to go along, and once you’re out there, mass psychology takes over? I have no idea of the issues at play there, but I don’t find the unrest at all surprising.
Basically an ongoing cycle of people protesting police mishandling something… and the police mishandle the protest… which leads to another protest… etc. with the propensity for violence increasing all the while. Police are afraid to go out on the streets in some areas because spontaneous crowds form to throw rocks at them. Then a cop fires his gun and kills a 15 year old kid.
Has there been particularly hot weather over there recently? I’m sure I’ve heard of some sort of correlation between heatwaves and unrest.
The cop is being charged with murder. It seems pretty clear that it was totally unjustified. I suppose the Greek are not as accustomed as Americans to the use of firearms.
There were widespread riots in Paris last November after a policeman killed a teenager, and general youth unrest led to massive rioting in France in 2005. There were riots in Denmark in 2006 and 2007 related to the closing of a youth center. There were three days of riots in Sweeden in 2001 during the EU conference. Throw in the current situation in Greece and that’s six major European riots in the last seven years, and there may be more i’m not aware of.
As Toxylon said, these are generally in response to some sparking event, but they’re not about the event per se… It’s the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back and lets simmering tensions boil over.
The spark that lit the powder keg, basically. The Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia reports this is the 70th person to die at the hands of police in the past decade. (Trying to first find the relevant article and any possible English translations at the moment.) The Greek economy is a mess and the high unemployment has disproportionately affected young people so there was a definite undercurrent of discontent simmering before this happened.
The first, immediate protests were spontaneous but Sunday’s and Monday’s protests were called by left-wing parties and met with an overwhelming response. There was a one-day strike planned for today well before the shooting occurred so the reaction to it has fed into the strike.
Greeks are no strangers to the use of firearms; a student uprising at Athens Polytechnic University in 1973 was crushed by tanks. That incident led to laws forbidding the military from entering college campuses.
Could someone please point me to (or tell me) the story of the initial incident? Everything I can find is about the rioting, with only cursory info on the shooting itself. I’m curious about what the kid was doing, why the police were there, why shots were fired, etc.
I’m also reminded of the riots in Australia a few years back. The kid died falling off his bike, but if it had been a shooting and Australia as a whole had been more unstable I could see that riots would have been more severe.
But it’s more complicated than that. Greeks have had a much more polarized view of the police since the military junta of 1967-1974. The legacy of the regime has created a fear of persecution from authorities and a greater acceptance of anarchistic movements. The military crackdown on a student uprising at Athen’s Polytechnic University in 1973 has had a particularly lasting effect, especially in the neighborhood of Exarcheia, where the initial shooting took place.
A similar incident in 1985 occurred when the police shot at 15 year old in the same neighborhood, which prompted further unrest.
Wrap all this up in one of the worst performing economies in the EU and you’ve got a recipe for trouble.
I’m sure someone with a better knowledge of Greek history will come along to better explain the troubled relationship.
Reminds me the Rodney King thing? Why did everyone go crazy?
Daniel … Toronto
Okay, I’m freaked.
Thishappened at my local shopping centre a few hours ago. I would expect protests at the very least, with a possibility of riots (I sound like a civil unrest weatherman).
There has been a political element to it and the riots have spread to other countries:
**
Demonstrations against the killing were seen in cities across the continent with left-wing radicals and other sympathisers taking to the streets.
In Spain, 11 protesters were arrested and several police officers injured when clashes took place in Madrid and Barcelona.
In Copenhagen, 32 people were arrested when their protest in support of the Greek protests turned violent.
In neighbouring Turkey, about a dozen left-wing protesters daubed red paint over the front of the Greek consulate in Istanbul.
Around 150 people belonging to a Danish underground movement took to the streets, throwing bottles and paint bombs at buildings, police cars and officers. In Moscow and Rome, protesters threw petrol bombs at Greece’s embassies. **
Why are you freaked? A crazy person is running around with knives. What are the police suppose to do when mace doesn’t affect the situation? It would be nice if they all had bat-nets and other make-believe tools to render crazy people safe but in reality real people have to deal with extremely dangerous situations in real-time.
What I continue to fail to understand in instances such as these is why the police, supposedly trained marksmen, cannot shoot someone in this situation in a non-lethal area of the body. You know, kneecap him or something?
If the kid was really as aggressive and unable to be subdued as the article describes after the police used pepper spray and warning shots, if there’s no taser or other non-lethal weapons available, and the police were fearing for their own safety, why not pop the kid in the leg a couple times and then once incapacitated, disarm him?
You haven’t read any of the threads discussing the use of tasers have you?
Police don’t shoot people in the kneecap because they’re not Annie Oakley. If they’re shooting it should be in direct response to endangerment and they are trained to shoot where it is effective. At best they could be trained to use shotguns if the situation allows but they have to be carrying them at the time. Obviously there are going to be situations where different tacticts can be applied but now we’re getting into the “what-if” side of a discussion.
You have to put yourself in the place of a police officer. They don’t get to click “pause” on the situation so that can talk about it at length. We had a police officer in my area try to talk a suspect down by lowering her weapon and the fuckwad shot her dead.
I’m freaked because I speculated on what would happen if a 15 year old got shot by police in Australia in a prior post, and not only did it happen within 12 hours of my posting, it happened at my local shopping centre.
Here’s a link to an article with some statements by the assistant police commissioner. Relevant portion is:
Why you fail to understand this is because you don’t understand firearms, police training and the physical reactions to stress.
Under extremely stressful conditions (the very definition of a “shoot/don’t shoot” scenario), fine motor skills are extremely diminished. Your hands may shake and your ability to aim at a relatively small, moving target is nearly gone. We are trained to shoot for the center of the largest body mass available, which is usually the center of the chest. That’s because the largest target is the easiest to hit.
Even when aiming at the center of mass, the percentage of actual hits during a firefight is shockingly low. The fact is, it is extremely difficult to shoot accurately when under such stressful conditions.
Also, just because someone has been shot in the leg does not mean that they are no longer a threat.
Sorry, I missed your unintended prediction. You’ll note the police spokes-person reiterated what I said about trying to shoot non-lethally.
It would be nice if someone invented a compact device for knife wielding crazy people but it still wouldn’t effect a confrontation with a gun. I suspect there will be a neurological weapon in the future that just drops people regardless of how drugged up they are. Someday.