Greece: Police officer appears in court over teen shooting

By COSTAS KANTOURIS
Associated Press

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Residents of a Roma settlement have lit fires near a police station outside Greece’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki to protest the police shooting of a 16-year-old driver during a chase over an unpaid gas station bill. Tuesday’s violence came after a 34-year-old police officer appeared in court over the shooting of the Roma youth, who was hit in the head and remains hospitalized in critical condition. The officer said he opened fire early Monday because the teenager tried to ram a pursuing police motorcycle with his pickup truck. Meanwhile, participants in annual marches Tuesday in Thessaloniki and Athens over the 2008 police shooting of a teenager also protested the Thessaloniki shooting. The marches were followed by limited violence.