Exarcheia

In 2008 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was shot dead by two police officers in Athens, Greece. A little before 9:00 pm December 6th, Grigoropoulos and his friends were sitting in a corner in Exarcheia, a neighbourhood in downtown Athens, exchanging swear words with two police officers in a passing patrol car. The two policemen, Epaminondas Korkoneas and Vasilis Saraliotis, later returned to the scene on foot, where Korkoneas pulled out his gun and shot and killed Grigoropoulos who died minutes later in a friend’s lap. The two policemen then returned to the Exarcheia police station and reported that anarchists had attacked them; they did not, however, report the shooting. Korkoneas later, perhaps as an attempt to justify his actions, attack the character of Grigoropoulos, stating he was a deviant youth, expelled from school, a hooligan and associated with hoarders of youth gangs. These allegations were never proven and the Interior Minister later…