Protests in Greece after police shoot teenager

Violent protests broke out in the Greek city of Thessaloniki on Monday evening after police shot a 16-year-old boy who allegedly filled up his vehicle at a gas station and left without paying.

The teenager remains in critical condition in hospital. The police officer who allegedly shot him in the head has been arrested and suspended from duty. Authorities say an internal investigation is underway. The officer is scheduled to appear before the state prosecutor on Tuesday on charges of attempted involuntary manslaughter.

Around 1,500 people took part in the protest and six were arrested.

Before the protest, about 100 Roma men had set up barricades, blocking a main road outside the hospital where the boy was being treated, and set fire to rubbish bins. Police had already used stun grenades and tear gas to disperse protesters who threw bottles at them outside the hospital.

Several hundred people also took part in a peaceful protest march in central Athens against the teenager's shooting and a past incident in which a Roma man was also shot dead during a police chase. Protesters in the Greek capital held a banner reading: “They shot them because they were Roma.”

Members of Greece's Roma community and human rights activists frequently accuse Greek authorities of discrimination against Roma. Several Roma men have been fatally shot or injured in recent years during clashes with police as they apparently sought to escape arrest for violating the law.

The injured young man was not named but was identified by his relatives as a member of the Roma minority.

The incident happened before dawn on Monday outside Thessaloniki. Police officers on a motorcycle patrol chased the teenager's pickup truck after a gas station attendant reported the unpaid €20 bill to authorities.

Police said the officer fired two shots in an attempt to stop the suspect from crashing into the motorcycle he was riding on. A statement said the driver of the van “repeatedly made dangerous maneuvers” and ran red lights before the shots were fired, adding that the vehicle then crashed.

Asked to comment on the shooting, government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou said: “The value of a human life can never be measured by a sum of money.”