Greek riots | 93 comments (93 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Greek teen died from bullet ricochet: court sources | AFP

Initial results from the post-mortem on a Greek teenager whose killing by police sparked five days of rioting show Alexis Grigoropoulos died from a bullet ricochet, court sources said Wednesday.
According to forensic doctors and independent experts hired by the boy's family, the bullet "is a bit deformed, which showed the bullet touched a hard surface" before entering the 15-year-old's chest, sources agreed.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 08:13:18 AM EST

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 3)

Does that match eye witness accounts?

by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 08:17:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 9)

So it ricocheted. So what? The fact is the police fired live ammo in the general direction of a group of teenagers.

What business does the police have using live ammo for crowd control? I thought that's what rubber bullets were for.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 08:26:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 5)

And even rubber bullets have excessive risk in crowd control situations, and should be banned.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 08:31:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 6)

Of course, this

Water-bottles were possibly thrown at the patrol car. The two officers left, they parked their car a couple of blocks away, they notified a squad of riot police that were in the area, and they proceeded to the square. There they start threatening and swearing at the group of kids - quite possibly (though this is still murky AFAIK) a different or larger group of kids - from a distance of possibly twenty meters. The kids swear back. It's like a street quarrel, only one side is armed and dangerous. No side moves towards the other. There are dozens of witnesses to all of this because the area is packed with cafes and shops. The police officer by all eyewitness accounts raises his gun, aims and shoots at a figure from the other side.

is not "crowd control".

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 09:05:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (none / 1)

too true

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 09:07:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 2)

I'm questioning the conclusion reached - being cynical as to whether it was reached to 'prove' that it wasn't intended to cause harm ie it was fired elsewhere as a warning, how unfortunate it actually hit somebody. Which is why I asked if it matches eye witness accounts because what I understand from the diary suggests the shot was fired directly at the teenager.

I agree there should be no reason for using live ammunition.

by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 08:53:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 2)

Well, people have been known to receive bullet wounds on the back from Spanish police firing "into the air".

The ricochet is neither here nor there - the cop was a crappy marksman and got "lucky". What matters is intent and you shouldn't fire live ammunition without intent.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 09:02:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 4)

theres always the case of the Armed Irishman in London who turned out to be armed with a table leg who managed to get shot in the back by all accounts, it happens all over the police firearms officers all threatened to go on strike (well hand in their weapons and refuse any armed action) unless no action was taken over the officers involved.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 09:11:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 5)

And let's not forget Mr De Menezes, and the coroner's intervention which guaranteed that unlawful killing wasn't an acceptable verdict.

If you give cops guns and fuel them up with paranoia and TV fantasies, you get dead people.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 02:24:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (none / 0)

I missed that one. What did the coroner do, exactly?

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 02:57:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 2)

declared that the Jury could not bring in a verdict of Unlawful Killing as the evidence didn't warrant it,

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 03:37:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 8)

Not only that, they fired in a densely populated area with appartments and shops all around. This is not yet being reported in the Greek news. The eyewitness (all of them) insist that he stood and aimed.

However if this means that the officer will be charged with manslaughter (given the eyewitness testimony), this means that the riots could well extend to Christmas, and that a new wave of violence is due: no-one in the streets will believe this.

As we speak there are three more teenagers injured, one seriously by the police. The clashes between teenagers (as young as 13 according to reports) and police are increasingly looking like clashes between rival gangs (only one side is armed).

The strike went ahead today as planned. The demonstration were not marred with serious clashes - it was after the demos that the clashes started anew. No breaking of shop-windows - yet.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 09:00:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (none / 0)

the riots could well extend to Christmas

When is the Greek Orthodox Christmas?

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 09:52:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 2)

December 25. Unlike some of the other Orthodox Churches, it is the same as the Western date, while Easter is not. I don't understand why.

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 10:04:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (none / 0)

I would guess that easter was important, and Christmas was not, at the time of the split. Choosing different days for important stuff is an easy way to make people choose their group.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 03:07:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (none / 0)

Greek Orthodox Easter happens after Passover.

Protestant/Catholic Easter sometimes does and sometimes does not.

Therein is your difference.

by Upstate NY on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 04:47:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (none / 1)

No difference, the 25th. It's not like the Slavic churches - the old lunar calander is used only for the determination of Easter in the Greek orthodox church - although there is a hyper-conservative branch that uses the old calendar.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 10:04:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (none / 0)

Even if the new calendar were used you would have different says for Easter since Greek Orthodox Easter is held after Passover.

by Upstate NY on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 04:50:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 6)

well unless there is contamination from the ground or other surface in the bullet, I dont see how that can necessarily be a given.

for example

Unlike other tissue simulants, that used at the Letterman Army Institute of Research(10% ordnance gelatin shot at 40C has been shown to reproduce the bullet deformation and fragmentation pattern seen in living animal muscle 11-31. Although the gelatin calibration was done using muscle, it has recently been found to show similar results in soft tissue shots of the abdomen as well.
Since bullet deformation in tissue is a function of the velocity with' which it enters the tissue,

from http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA188670&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

Bullet deformation is also fairly likely in shots into the chest cavity from Impact with bones.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 08:30:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullet richocheted (4.00 / 7)

At this point what I read in the Greek media is that this was announced by the defense lawyer. There hasn't been a ballistic report yet bacause it hasn't started. The family hasn't even assigned its own expert. This according to the certainly very unradical in.gr the largest greek online newssite [in greek]. The celebrity lawyer is using some preliminary reports to create his own story.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 10:34:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Greek riots | 93 comments (93 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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