The Greek government said it will investigate and impose "exemplary punishment" after a police officer shot and killed a 15 year-old youth, sparking riots across the country for a second day, Bloomberg reported.
"Only the final investigation will show what happened," Interior and Public Order Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos said in a televised news conference today. "The truth will be uncovered, and there will be exemplary punishment." Pavlopoulos called for calm, saying protesters should refrain from destroying property and threatening "others who aren't to blame."
Police fired tear gas to disperse rioters at demonstrations in Athens and Thessaloniki today, called after a policeman in the Athens neighborhood of Exarhia shot and killed the youth. Today's demonstrations followed riots late yesterday, begun by a crowd of about 1,000 youths rampaging through central Athens to burn and attack banks, stores and cars, according to an Attica police statement.
Skai television reported a group of 300 youths broke windows, set fires and battled with riot police in the aftermath of today's Athens's demonstration, which marched down the central Alexandras avenue, where the Athens police headquarters is located. The youths were battling police in the region of the centrally-located Polytechnic university, the site of a 1973 student uprising.
The protests last night spread to other Greek cities, including Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest, and to the island of Crete. In Athens, six people were arrested for looting and two department stores on the city's main shopping street, run by Sprider SA and Fourlis SA, were gutted by fires. In total, eight stores, seven banks and 20 vehicles were torched in the capital.
Marches today were also held in Rethymno, Crete, and the port city of Patras where participants threw rocks at police and set fire to garbage cans, the state-run Athens News Agency reported.
The unidentified youth was killed after a patrol car was attacked in the Athens neighborhood of Exarhia by a group of about 30 youths at around 9 p.m. yesterday, according to a ministry statement. Two officers and the head of the local police station were suspended, and three prosecutors appointed to investigate the incident, the ministry statement said.
Pavlopoulos and his deputy, Panagiotis Chinofotis, offered their resignations, which weren't accepted, Pavlopoulos said.