Police shoot gunman dead
Police shot dead an armed man during a gunfight outside a western Athens primary school yesterday, in which an officer was severely wounded. The shootout on Lelas Karayianni St in Sepolia occurred just after noon, in front of the onlooking primary school pupils and minutes before the street filled with children from three nearby nursery schools after the end of lessons. The incident followed a routine complaint by a Sepolia resident that a couple was fighting on the street. Two officers who arrived in a patrol car found the two engaged in a violent altercation and asked what was wrong. The man reportedly tried to fob them off, but the woman indicated that she needed help. As the officers drew close, the man pulled a gun and fled. In the ensuing gunfight, the man was shot dead, while officer Andreas Kotsikoyiannis, 28, suffered a chest wound. Police were still trying to establish the dead gunman’s identity late yesterday, as the woman claimed not to have known him. Kotsikoyiannis was recovering in the hospital.
