A 15-year old kid was murdered Saturday by Athenian police when he and a group of other boys began pelting the cop car with stones.  The kid was apparently shot while trying to throw a gasoline bomb at the cops.  Following the shooting, riots broke out in Athens and a second city, Thessaloniki, continuing through today.  Several government buildings, thirty-five cars, and as many as 160 trash bins have been torched so far as a result of the rioting, accompanied by the inevitable looting of businesses.
Shooting to kill someone without a gun it is terrible, but when that person is a kid as young as 15 and the police are doing the shooting it is an atrocity that will not go without some public outcry.  While the events leading to the murder are not yet known, one could conceive that the police had the power to simply take cover in their car before the gas bomb was thrown and apprehend the boy after.  However, this does not appear to be the case, as the police fired and killed the kid before the bomb was thrown.  The rioters in Greece have every right to be as outraged as they are, and are justified in showing that outrage.  When a representative of the state's authority shoots a kid—innocent or not—people are going to hold their government accountable, and show their dismay in some way.  Apparently a group of anarchists has chosen to show this resentment forcefully and publicly.  In their minds they're fighting the same faceless badge that killed their comrade, and seem to be doing a good job of it.  A student in Athens summed up the feelings well when he said, "Rage is what I feel for what has happened, rage, and that this cop who did it must see what it is to kill a kid and to destroy a life."


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"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?"